The virus doesn't discriminate, but our response to it has. We've seen how stigma and discrimination have fueled this epidemic more than the virus itself ever could.

Our knowledge of the world is always fragmentary and incomplete and our explanations of how the world works have therefore to be considered as provisional. This means we have to accept that sometimes we will turn out afterwards to have been wrong.

As children we experience a domestication process where rather than having our authenticity unlocked for us, instead we have put upon us layers and layers of rules about how we ought to behave and how we ought not to behave.

I recall a moment when my dad and I, lacking presents, salvaged chairs from a community dumpster, a testament to our determination to make the best of our situation without any sense of pride or entitlement. His willingness to do whatever was necessary for us taught me resilience.

People work for technical ability and wish for happiness. That's a mistake. You need to treat your happiness the way you treat all your skills - you need to work for your happiness - not just wish for it.

Creative process by its nature involves figuring out all the things that don't work on your way to figuring out the things that do. You can't have it both ways…

I had to remain in war mode. I had to continue confronting my captors, not accept what was happening to me. The relationship I had with my captors was based on suspicion.

We have to leave behind the myth that our economies are actually fit for the present that we understand, and the vision of the future we want to create. We need to redesign economics for our times.

You can look at building a startup much like a resource management game. In the world of startups, the things that really matter are talent and capital! If you have a large supply of talent, and a lot of capital, you'll win every time.

We have to create systems that make people think twice before they behave badly. People need to credibly believe that there will be consequences to their actions if caught in random stings. If you are in a position where you are uniquely able to wield power- politics, police, corporate leadership- you should be randomly subject to attempts to see if you behave badly when offered the opportunity to do so.

We need to be responsible adults, yet society is- at best- irresponsible adolescents. Our society isn't worried about long-term consequences, it's 'live for today, party now, forget about the hangover...'

One of the ideas you hear often is that in America there is a culture where not only is it ok to fail, but it's almost expected – like a badge of honor. This is true to a point but that implies a cut-throat culture that is more legend than reality and is actually bad for innovation.