Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.

Economists often talk about the 80/20 Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the “work” will be done by 20 percent of the participants. In most societies, 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of crimes. Twenty percent of motorists cause 80 percent of all accidents. Twenty percent of beer drinkers drink 80 percent of all beer. When it comes to epidemics, though, this disproportionality becomes even more extreme: a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work.

I became convinced that knowing lots of people was kind of skill, something that the diligent can overcome.

I worry that track is going to enter into an impossibly complicated stage, where our understanding of the complexities of human physiology - and our ability to accentuate and exploit them - is going to make the notion of pure competition impossible.

You can't concentrate on doing anything if you are thinking, “What's gonna happen if it doesn't go right?

I don't really collect books. I tend to lose interest in them the minute I've read them, so most of the books I've read are left in airplanes and hotel rooms.

You don't start at the top if you want to find the story. You start in the middle, because it's the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world.