Mastery is great, but even that is not enough. You have to be able to change course without a bead of sweat, or remorse.

There's nobody in the world that wouldn't change places with the Americans. The economy is phenomenally large, the entrepreneurial class is very alive and very well, the universities, despite budget problems, still turn out something like 90 percent of the refereed academic and technical articles in the world. There's a lot on everybody's agenda.

Do it, fix it, try it.

Steve Jobs is perhaps the most competitive human being I have ever met in my life, and yet I would argue one of the most artistic human beings I have ever met in my life. You can trash the movies all you want, but they do have an artistic component. And yet brutal competition knows no peers when it comes to Hollywood.

An ability to embrace new ideas, routinely challenge old ones, and live with paradox will be the effective leader's premier trait.

If your company has a clean-desk policy, the company is nuts and you're nuts to stay there.

The idea of intimately entwining with customers [to get ideas] is an idea whose time has come.