Charitable giving is a huge sector in the United States. It amounts to $350 billion a year. And yet, I can't help feeling that a lot of that is wasted because people have not been thinking about how to do it as effectively as possible.

I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.

People may hope that the meat they buy came from an animal who died without pain, but they do not really want to know about it. Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed do not deserve to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.

If you have the abilities to earn a lot of money and if you have the character to persist in giving that to the most effective charities you can find, then that may be the best thing that you can do. And - also, if you do become a Wall Street banker, I think you need to be aware of what you're doing in terms of your daily work, not just earning money to give a lot away. But you need to think about - am I harming people through the work that I'm doing?

If we're going to live an ethical life, it's not enough just to follow the thou-shalt-nots. … If we have enough, we have to share some of that with people who have so little.

Looking back on my career, I think I've been extremely fortunate to be in the right place at the right time in order to have the influence that I did.

If you go back in time you'll find tribes that were essentially only concerned with their own tribal members. If you were a member of another tribe, you could be killed with impunity.