The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is to ask what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters?

It is very clear that voice communications is moving on to the Internet. In the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the Net will trend toward zero.

We can put our head in the sand and continue to lose jobs overseas and to other states, or we can say, 'You know what? We are not going to lose another job from California, and we're going to be the very best place to start and grow a business.' So I'll be the chief sales officer for California businesses.

Silicon Valley is 130 miles from Sacramento, but it might as well be a million miles away given how it operates.

Most of us can't even begin to imagine.

One good thing about California is we have quite a broad-based economy. We provide more fruits and vegetables and produce to the United States than any other state. So we have actually the single largest agricultural sector in the country.

You know, in a workplace, when you shrink the size of a workforce, there is pain there. But there is no question: we have a government that we can no longer afford.That is the cold, hard fact. So we have to make this more efficient. We have to sunset programs that no longer work. We have to eliminate waste and fraud. We must do this.