You get some success. You run into some walls...it's how tenacious you are, how irrepressible, how ultimately optimistic and tenacious you are about it that will determine your success.

I'm a shareholder in Microsoft Corp. of some size, and while I don't work for the place anymore, I think a lot about that investment, how - as an outsider - might I add value or not add value? Do I believe that things are headed in a good direction? So I wouldn't say I spend the majority of my time on that, but I spend some time on that as well.

The lifeblood of our business is that R&D spend. There's nothing that flows through a pipe or down a wire or anything else. We have to continuously create new innovation that lets people do something they didn't think they could do the day before.

Almost three years ago, when I retired, my wife and I were talking about our philanthropic work and how does one help give opportunity, particularly to kids growing up in very disadvantaged situations.And my initial kind of sense was, the government does that primarily, and what we should mostly do is pay our taxes. My wife said, no, I don't think that's quite right for us. We need to do more. We can do better.

Ultimately progress is measured sort of through the eyes of users.

It's always great when you get a lot of people pushing themselves to do better, be better, invent better, better serve, better lead customers in new directions.

I have lots of sources of information about what's going on at the company. I think I have a pretty good pulse on where we are and what people are thinking.