You're going to see a million people here who have the courage to come and not let terrorists win, and that's exactly what we should all do.

If you think of all the publicity about the terrible tragedy of Virginia Tech, we have a Virginia Tech in this country every day. It's just spread across 50 states.

I've always wondered if people who block each other from expressing their opinions do so because they have so little confidence in their own. To me, encountering an opposing point of view is a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the issues at stake and develop my own point of view. But the first thing you've got to do is you've got to let people speak and you've got to listen. And that's what the first amendment is all about. That's what really distinguishes this country from others.

Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11.

What I'm trying to do is to create excitement. So people looking at the Bloomberg's office building say, "My goodness, what's going on here? There's something different about this company." You want the employees to get psyched. And it's a chance to meet each other. My job is to get people to work together. With free food and no offices, even for Bloomberg, this might be considered one of the world's great corporate headquarters.

Nobody wants a job where they don't have authority to go along with the responsibility. Quite the contrary. The more authority you give people, the better people you can attract, and the harder they're going to work, and the more loyal they are going to be.

You have to understand, we have better communications and better transportation, so people know what's available elsewhere and can get a message out, and you can move things. And you [can] say that the economy is more unpredictable.