Geopolitics is all about leverage. We cannot make ourselves safer abroad unless we change our behavior at home.

Oil is a tangible commodity, so there is a global market. The fact that we may need less may affect the global price because we're big consumers: we probably take about a quarter of global demand. But if suddenly, let's just use a crazy example, fighting in the Middle East led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and no oil could get out through the Strait of Hormuz, well that would affect China, India, Europe, it will affect the whole global economy. It will affect us, too, then.

If you want to get an advance machine tool job today, you need to know calculus. We know a lot of people don't, we can't expect everyone to know calculus, what do we do? We created a huge bubble that created a huge number of jobs to build houses and to be in retail. You don't have to have a lot of skills to work in the new Gap store that opened, at the latest Starbucks branch, or to hammer a nail for a new house.

No, most of our political elite has not realized that the world is flat.

The great thing about cheap natural gas, again it's cheap, and it provides a cleaner alternative to coal. But it's still a fossil fuel, and because it's still a fossil fuel, it still emits carbon.

Two things are going on at the same time with the flattening of the world: The relentless quest for efficiency is squeezing some of the fat out of life.

Your boss doesn't care what you know, because the Google machine knows everything. Your boss cares about what you can do with what you know. That's the only thing your boss will pay for.