Success is achieved by people who deeply understand reality and know how to use it to get what they want. The converse is also true: idealists who are not well-grounded in reality create problems, not progress.

Competitiveness is really what it costs you per man-hour to get you what you want. In other words, there's an education level that plays into the mix and so if it's inexpensive to buy an hour of real good education in places like China versus the U.S., that factors in.

In order to get past disagreements, you just can't have one person with power decide. In other words, so just because I'm a boss, it would be terrible if I then said, "Okay, we're gonna go do this." That's why, after that thoughtful disagreement, there has to be a process of an idea meritocracy. That means okay, now you have to vote, not that the decision resides with power. And then you vote and move beyond it.

I have found that by looking at what is rewarded and punished, and why, universally - i.e., in nature as well as in humanity - I have been able to learn more about what is "good" and "bad" than by listening to most people's views about good and bad.

I'm going to give away a lot more than half my money. I'd be happy to give that to the government if the government put together programs that were like I'm giving away to charity, in which I believe the money is effectively used to help people.

In return, society rewards those who give it what it wants. That is why how much money people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted.

I think the greatest tragedy of mankind is that people have ideas and opinions in their heads but don't have a process for properly examining these ideas to find out what's true. That creates a world of distortions.