And what we did with this new company in 1985 is we did start focusing on PCs instead of video game machines, because we learned the hard lesson about bringing a product to market in a consumer world where it's very expensive to build a brand and get distribution and so forth.

In less than a year Revolution has gone from being a concept to a reality, with three rapidly growing sector companies, overseeing a dozen acquired firms that collectively employ more than 2,500 people. But we're just scratching the surface in terms of the potential to build Revolution into a new kind of company that gives consumers more choice, control and convenience in the important aspects of their lives.

We need that same mentality in philanthropy, trying things, taking risks, recognizing the first try, maybe the second try, maybe the third try won't work. But if you stay at it and you're learning, you're talking to others, and you're learning together, eventually you'll break through and see the kind of impact you were hoping for.

From a relatively early age I got interested in business

I enjoyed high school and college, and I think I learned a lot, but that was not really my focus. My focus was on trying to figure out what businesses to start

But the idea that some day people would want to be able to interact and get stock quotes and talk with other people or all these different things, I just believed that was going to happen

I do think actually in this case the government does get credit for funding some of the basic research.