Wisdom in fragments

One of the unique aspects of a prize, and particularly an X-Prize, is that it doesn't require letters after your name, specific degrees or backgrounds or so on. We simply define what it is we want solved, and award the prize to whomever is able to accomplish that.

What I mean by that is compensation systems- especially for traders- that created go for broke incentives. If you won big, you became fabulously wealthy- and if you lost big- you got a comparative slap across the wrist.

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

Markets have an incredible capacity to forget, so who knows if it will stay like that… Markets forget, they get over-leveraged, they extend themselves, we will see other bubbles.

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

One of the themes which is perhaps more important in the intellectual rather than practical world was the excessive love affair that people in the financial world had with the efficient markets hypothesis. If you take that literally, there can't be bubbles. Who can believe that now?

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

The government turned a profit on the financial market aspects of TARP- a profit! People still think these measures cost American taxpayers a huge amount of money and did no good. The facts are exactly the reverse.

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

There's a disease shared between individuals who consider themselves the smartest people in the room that makes them think they'll be the ones that get out just in time, while others are left holding the bag. That was true for a few people, but in general… someone will always be left holding the bag.

Prominent Economist & Former Vice Chair of Federal Reserve Board

People also lose sight of the fact that technology driven globalisation has been extremely beneficial for a lot of people outside the US. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted above the poverty line in India, China, Africa and elsewhere.

University of Chicago finance professor specializing in private equity and leveraged buyouts

Technology, scale and globalisation has helped people involved in business- and led to increased incomes for many groups. The conundrum we have in society is that many of the 'less-skilled' members of the population have not done so well from these trends and that's part of the reason for backlash.

University of Chicago finance professor specializing in private equity and leveraged buyouts

If corporate profits are high, it suggests performance has been terrific… you can't then complain that governance is broken! You can't have it both ways…. if corporate governance was better, profits would be even higher!

University of Chicago finance professor specializing in private equity and leveraged buyouts

So not only has average pay gone down, but the job has got riskier.

University of Chicago finance professor specializing in private equity and leveraged buyouts

The average pay, inflation adjusted, has dropped more than 40% – yet the Gretchen Morgenson's of the world want to write that it's going up and up… that's just wrong.

University of Chicago finance professor specializing in private equity and leveraged buyouts

We're taking capability from NASA that used to cost billions of dollars, and we're doing it for tens of millions of dollars. We want to learn that critical information necessary to develop those resources.

Our mission is to expand the economic sphere of influence of humanity off the surface of the planet and into the solar system. Currently we have a vibrant economy in space that goes out to the geostationary belt- where the communication satellites are- and it stops.

The design and collaborative power of an individual engineer or technologist is more powerful than it's ever been. The tasks themselves are getting more accessible too. Putting a robotic spacecraft out into space is becoming fairly routine.

Water is the essence of life. On Earth it's used to grow plants and within industrial processes but in space it takes on a whole new form. We can use water as a radiation shield. One cubic metre of water gives the same protection as Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere. Water is a molecule made of hydrogen and oxygen- and that happens to be rocket fuel.

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me... And there are very few African-American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars.

44th President of the United States (2009-2017)