L.A. is very special to me, so far away from my world on the East Coast, Europe, Asia. It's a bit of an island for me - less intense, less busy; because of time difference and location, it has a calming effect. At least it used to be all that.

Commodity exchanges have a lot of advantages. One, you are helping transparency. Two, they are not political. It's institutional building. It can survive any environment, in theory.

California is a place of invention, a place of courage, a place of vision, a place of the future. People who made California what it is were willing to take risks, think outside convention and build.

Everything I do now is about growing the pot to have more to give away.

Luckily the whole world is not like me, or else, there would be no world.

California has something which not every place in the world has: It has what I would call a sunny side, and I don't mean just physically, but the sunny side is a future. California's worth saving, to put it bluntly.

The biggest determinant in our lives is culture, where we are born, what the environment looks like. But the second biggest determinant is probably governance, good governance or a certain kind of governance makes a huge difference in our lives.