When you have to prove the value of your ideas by persuading other people to pay for them, it clears out an awful lot of woolly thinking.

It's a great discipline to have to report to somebody, even if you're the sole owner

I think Microsoft will have to change. I think that the business of Microsoft, the company of Microsoft, is going to continue to succeed. But I think the business model of Microsoft is going to have to change.

Life is not a tour of gas stations.

The nice thing about twitter is the architecture of visibility. Email is invisible unless you reach out to someone directly. With Twitter, anyone can follow you and this is one of the big changes that was really introduced by Flickr, was this wonderful idea that you can follow somebody without their permission. Recognizing that relationships are asymmetrical, unlike facebook where we have to acknowledge each other otherwise we can’t see each other.

A key function of a publishing brand is the bestowal of status by who and what you pay attention to.

There are more than 21 eBook channels already. Authors can’t possibly get to these and do what they do best.