I want to find people who have had to work hard and who have learned from their failures. Perseverance is no guarantee you’ll succeed, but without it, it’s almost guaranteed you won’t.

The real magic in National Geographic isn't how much money they have left at the end of the year. It's the fact that through their overall focus they are reaching hundreds of millions of people and educating people about the world. It just happens to be done in a business-oriented kind of way that is more sustainable.

At AOL, we thought the killer app was people

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.

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 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

I was a better builder than a manager. I'd rather focus on maximizing the opportunities swinging for the fences than minimizing the risk with bunts and singles.