Nature is pretty good at networks, self-organizing systems. By contrast, social systems are top-down and hierarchical, from which we draw the basic assumption that organization and order can only come from centralism.

Young people, I happen to believe, are the world's most precious natural resource.

MIT is governed by a second, even higher rule: the inalienable right of academic freedom.

Very often kids don't ask questions in class because they don't want to be seen asking a question.

The notion of collective contribution, like the Wikipedia, is a very powerful one.

Good education has got to be good entertainment.

It's hard to propose a $100 laptop for a world community of kids and then not say in the same breath that you're going to depend on the community to make software for it.