By shifting the balance away from the individual we open the door for the individual. Because we make it obvious that anyone can do it given the right circumstance.

Where they come from matters. They're products of particular places and environments.

A radical and transformative thought goes nowhere without the willingness to challenge convention.

I know it sounds hard to believe, but habits laid down by our ancestors persist even after the conditions that created those habits have gone away.

Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness.

People can't do much about the fate part, but we can certainly do a lot about the man part.

The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?