The recent politicisation of guns, which I think the NRA is partly responsible for, has been incredibly debilitating for the country.

Only relatively recently in our own culture, five hundred years or so ago, did a distinction arise that cut society in two, forming separate classes of music performers and music listeners.

It's shocking how quickly this innovation [the internet] has become woven into the foundation of everything that we do. In just 30 years, the internet and the world wide web have gone from being generally unknown to consumers to being involved in every aspect of life, and necessary for almost everything. There is no healthy society without a healthy internet.

Before you succeed, you must first learn to fail. If you keep repeating the same thing, you're always going to fail, you need to adjust. We have to look at failures and use them as an educational tool.

My parents instilled in me the belief that everyone you meet can teach you something, regardless of their age, background, or education.

They should be stress-testing their balance sheets and portfolios under a range of negative scenarios, and have sufficient capital and liquidity to withstand scenarios that are far out on the tail of the distribution of possible outcomes. The stress tests should account for potential bubbles in global asset markets.

I knew then that I was in for some serious challenges. Not only did we lack funding and morale among the workforce, but we were also lagging technologically. The first task at hand was motivating my team and providing a clear vision for our future, despite my limited knowledge of tyre manufacturing.

As children we experience a domestication process the same way animals do, where rather than having who we are, our authenticity, our essence unlocked for us, instead we have put upon us layers and layers of rules. We take this very complicated, confusing, and demoralising code of behaviour into our adulthood with us.

Stay undefined and stay curious. Our world is changing so rapidly that the only way to survive, thrive and adjust is to have a deep and constant level of curiosity.

The idea itself constitutes about 20% of the success, the remaining 80% hinges on execution. This understanding is vital for an early-stage investor to gauge the potential success of a venture.

As a founder, you're not God. You're a mere piece of the puzzle. To have a company grow, it has to have a lot of people and those people need to feel ownership. You need a winning culture to keep people driving forward. It's not just about loving each other's company, it's about winning together.

Having forefathers as merchants that forged their own paths pushed me to pursue a similar journey. At this point I got a lead that there was a lot of potential in catering, and so in 1982 I set out to make my mark competing with major international companies.