The path to success used to be up and through an organization. Now the path to success is increasingly through self-promotion.

We do not want to live in a theocracy. We should maintain that barrier and government has no business telling someone what they ought to believe or how they should conduct their private lives.

In entertainment, the technology began giving us greater choice and easier switching before almost any other area. The studios became much more dependent on the stars, not just star actors and directors but also star technicians, star cinematographers. It's a very important evolution in terms of understanding why people are working the way they're working.

I'm quite optimistic when it comes to the capacity of our people to have an honest discussion about what's really going on. What do you think John McCain's candidacy was about? And the early days of Bill Bradley's candidacy? People are hungry for a genuine, no-spin set of ideas and truths. They want their leaders to tell it like it is. There is a great demand for this. Politicians continually underestimate the ability of the American public to understand what's happening to them and what the real choices are.

On the Republican playing field, Republicans always win.

I, from the luxury of my laptop computer, can summon extraordinary bargains on everything I want, and I can also move my savings anywhere. This ability to choose more broadly and to switch more easily is the central fact of modern economic life.

When I was a kid, the bigger boys would pick on me. So I got an idea that I would make alliances with older boys, like just one or two, who would be my protectors.