Analytics only goes so far. Basketball, more than baseball, for example, is really a team sport.

I think these things social networks are going to have some legs,and yet there's a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.

We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we're in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There's no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either.

It's the luxury of time that lets me in some ways now spoil myself. I get my workout in every day. I get a good, long sleep every day. I won't say they're guilty pleasures. When I first left Microsoft, I would say I spent the better part of a year saying, "OK, how do I get as busy and crazy and manic as I was at Microsoft?" Since then I said, "No, I'll make a bigger contribution in this phase of my life by being able to pick and choose, not being so manic, having time to step back, a little more time for what I'll call discernment rather than just activity."

Our industry is going through quite a wave of innovation and it's being powered by a phenomenon which is referred to as the cloud.

One might ask the question: Is the mortgage interest deduction doing a better job, a worse job, if it's supposed to promote homeownership and savings? Because home ownership is the biggest form of savings in this country. Different people will look at that data and draw different conclusions, but that's just an example of the kind of thing you can pull out of USAFacts and develop a point of view about.

I meet with Satya [Nadella] what probably amounts to four or five times a year - either to brainstorm something or just as a shareholder, we'll sit down and chat. That's always quite helpful for me and hopefully him in terms of thinking things through. I still have a number of friends and colleagues who occasionally want to brainstorm or chat about something, and that's always fun.