Learn to raise capital by any means necessary. That's your primary job as an entrepreneur. You must continually raise capital from family and friends, banks, suppliers, customers and investors.

A business is simply an idea to make other people's lives better.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

About 40 percent of my time is spent on social issues and building new organizations, more for the benefit of the climate or health issues.

I felt uneasy about making the rapid decisions I have always made, and wondered whether every decision should be formally ratified and minuted at a board meeting.

Only a fool never changes his mind.

We went all the way down the Himalayan chain for a day and a half. That was magnificent, except the Chinese told us they were going to shoot us down if we came out the far end. So I spent a lot of my time contacting former Prime Minister Tony Blair begging him to tell the Chinese we were coming in this direction by mistake and could he please say we have no nasty motives for flying into their territory.