Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own preconceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas but lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer ... But crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable ... They are people willing to take social risks-to do things that others might disapprove of.

Radio stations have constructed a narrow door[way], and that's because they don't understand how complex and paradoxical our snap judgments are. It's hard to measure new songs.

If there is one thing I learned by reading Epstein's "The Sports Gene" it is that world-class athletes are, by definition, abnormal: that is, the kind of person capable of competing at that level is necessarily very different from the rest of us physiologically. They are outliers.

For every romantic possiblity, no matter how robust, there exists at least one equal and opposite sentence, phrase, or word capable of extinguishing it.

We vary greatly in the natural advantages that we've been given. The world's not fair

So, it's a very, you know - maybe we're wrong in - you know, we go around thinking the innovator is the person who's first to kind of conceive of something. And maybe the innovation process continues down the line to the second and the third and the fourth entrant into a field.

You may hate Hillary Clinton and you may have good reason for hating Hillary Clinton, but Hillary Clinton is one person who even if she's elected will be gone one day and you still have the task of keeping American democracy going.