When I first got started in the late '70s, early '80s, and first was thinking about the interactive world, I believed so fervently that it was the next big thing, I thought it would happen quickly.

Nobody should have to be a systems integrator to make a convergence network work in their home

You're not just trying to do something marginally, incrementally better. You're doing something that is a fundamental paradigm shift, that will have exponential impact. That means it's harder to do, but ultimately, if it's successful, the impact it has is far greater.

I like ... what I characterize as more built-to-last ideas rather than built-to-flip ideas.

I'm not sure I knew what an entrepreneur was when I was ten, but I knew that starting little businesses and trying to sell greeting cards or newspapers door-to-door or just vending machine kind of thing is.. there's just something very intriguing to me about that.

I think it took us nine years to get one million subscribers to AOL, and then in the next nine years we went from one million to 35 million.

So we believed that strategic alliances and partnerships were critical, and we did that for five years.