If you invest in Microsoft or Oracle, or a number of other companies for that matter, you're fundamentally making a bet that there's going to be no innovation. So an investment in Microsoft is a bet that the operating system is going to stay the same, it won't be replaced by Linux, Google Docs, or a mobile platform like iOS or Android.

Whatever the career, sales ability distinguishes superstars from also-rans.

There is perhaps no specific time that is necessarily right to start your company or start your life. But some times and some moments seem more auspicious than others. Now is such a moment. If we don’t take charge and usher in the future - if you don’t take charge of your life - there is the sense that no one else will.

I believe we are in a world where innovation in stuff was outlawed. It was basically outlawed in the last 40 years - part of it was environmentalism, part of it was risk aversion.

People don't want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology - all these areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think. And the question is why.

In the '30s, the Keynesian stuff worked at least in the sense that you could print money without inflation because there was all this productivity growth happening. That's not going to work today.

Anyone who prefers owning part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and a commitment to increasing your company's value in the future.