The strangeness of reality was apparent long before the advent of quantum mechanics. The history of science is a sequence of revelations, each showing that the true nature of things is not what it seems to the casual observer. Quantum mechanics, however, takes this weirdness to a new level.

I found myself deeply entrenched in the political world because, as I've come to realize, decisions about our bodies aren't made in clinics or doctor's offices. They're made in Westminster.

The PTSD levels in women nine months post-miscarriage match those of soldiers returning from combat zones like Afghanistan. Coupled with elevated suicide rates and the broader impact on families, it's a glaring issue. Considering miscarriages occur in 1 in 4 pregnancies, it's astonishing how common yet underdiscussed it is.

Ernest Becker proposed that we still worship, it's just that we worship money and political leaders or become members of cults, conspiracy groups or yoga! These are just different ways of dealing with death and anxiety.

Being an entrepreneur, an inventor, is about having ideas and having the doggedness to see them through… As an inventor your ideas should be based on creating a solution to a problem – a solution which focuses on function over form. Solving problems has been my life's work.

What's unnerving is that when students learn about this character (rational economic man), over time they begin to value self-interest and competition over altruism and collaboration. These models are performative. When we say rational economic man, we become more like him. Who we tell ourselves we are, shapes who we become…

If an average developing nation had the UK's primary and secondary education level, it would be approximately 40% wealthier. It's indisputable that education makes individuals highly productive, making countries richer in the long run.

I learned more from the people at those events – the community, the customer – than anyone in business.

What crises actually do is expose the underlying fragility and structural flaws within an economy and society. Some of this is endemic – financial markets are fragile because they are giant pools of sentiment and leverage at their heart.

The price of technology comes down every year, year after year, and I see no immediate end in sight to that process. What this means is that the poorest people in the world will soon have the possibility to access the Internet in some form, and eventually will have 'ordinary' access to it.

I used to keep a pair of lizards in an aquarium and fed them live crickets. At the time, I didn't think twice about it—I didn't believe crickets had any inner life at all. But now I wonder if I was actually creating the worst moments of their existence by feeding them to my lizards.

Entrepreneurs and investors must make discrete choices, often with quite incomplete information and uncertainty about the future, about which ideas to progress and which to shut down. Financiers rather than markets dictate which projects are realized, as they choose which experiments to attempt, how to interpret the results, and whether to continue or abandon the investment.