There's a wide range of sales ability: there are many gradations between novices, experts, and masters. There are even sales grandmasters. If you don't know any grandmasters, it's not because you haven't encountered them, but rather because their art is hidden in plain sight.

Technology is probably the single biggest driver of productivity gains for the developed countries. For example, I think it's much more important than free trade.

Everybody has a product to sell—no matter whether you’re an employee, a founder, or an investor. It’s true even if your company consists of just you and your computer. Look around. If you don’t see any salespeople, you’re the salesperson.

A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It's like telling the world there's no Santa Claus.

It is sort of a bit of a caricature of capitalism, that it's always this zero-sum game where you have winners and losers. Silicon Valley, the technology industry at its best, creates a situation where everybody can be a winner.

I'm skeptical of a lot of what falls under the rubric of education.... People are on these tracks. They are getting these credentials and it's very unclear how viable they are in many cases.

What nerds miss is that it takes hard work to make sales look easy.