Wisdom in fragments

People ask me all the time what do you want to be known for? My answer is simple. I want people to say 'Shaquille O'Neal was a nice guy…' forget how much money I made, forget how many championships I won, or what type of businessman I am.

Hall of Fame NBA Center & 4-Time NBA Champion

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.

Hall of Fame NBA Center & 4-Time NBA Champion

I never started off with money, I started off with love. The love of being an entrepreneur. The love of being a lawyer. The love of being an athlete. When you start off with love, people will love and respect you and you will always be monetarily rewarded.

Hall of Fame NBA Center & 4-Time NBA Champion

I would have played basketball for $120,000 for 7 years rather than $120 million, because I loved to play basketball. I never said to myself that I would only play basketball if they pay me $100million – I played basketball because I loved basketball.

Hall of Fame NBA Center & 4-Time NBA Champion

To achieve greatness means to maximise your potential at the highest possible level, and the highest possible rate. I don't really consider myself the best, but the fact that people consider me the best I take as a great honour and as testament to the hard work and what I was able to achieve.

Hall of Fame NBA Center & 4-Time NBA Champion

The scope of entrepreneurial fulfilment, the scope of new entrants changing the world is broader than ever before, and that's great for society. That's great for everyone.

Prominent venture capitalist and early Tesla investor at Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Our singular filter is to find the people, projects and opportunities that we think are going to be game-changing for humanity. If you succeed at doing that, you'll make plenty of money (even if you fail half the time).

Prominent venture capitalist and early Tesla investor at Draper Fisher Jurvetson

For me, the key has been to become more and more humble over time in a way that I realise that I shouldn't be interfering with the magic and beauty of what an entrepreneur can do.

Prominent venture capitalist and early Tesla investor at Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Visionary leaders that build great companies have some personality attributes they share. They are self-confident enough to be humble. They have a reservoir, a personal drive, passion, belief in their capabilities, and they're willing to admit what they don't do well and to seek those people to join their team from the very beginning.

Prominent venture capitalist and early Tesla investor at Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Whether we look at the rioters who converged on the capital, the Gamestop Redditors, Incels or Qanon followers, what they have in common is that they're groups of people who are lonely and craving community. That fundamental need for human connection is missing for significant swathes of our population, and that's dangerous.

Economist & Author on Globalization, Corporate Power & Digital Society

Loneliness is thought to be as bad for our health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. If you're lonely, you have a 32% higher chance of getting a stroke, a 29% higher chance of having heart disease and 30% higher chance of dying prematurely.

Economist & Author on Globalization, Corporate Power & Digital Society

The neo-liberal capitalist mindset has been a huge contributor to loneliness. Since the 1980s, a new form of economics came to the fore which enshrined the pursuit of self-interest over the pursuit of collective good. That generated the mindset we see today- me first, dog-eat-dog, greed is good.

Economist & Author on Globalization, Corporate Power & Digital Society

Loneliness very much defines what this century has become. It's a feeling of being disconnected from our government, our fellow citizens and our employer. That feeling of being invisible, unseen and unheard occurs not just from those we are closest to but also from our workplace and state.

Economist & Author on Globalization, Corporate Power & Digital Society

There are all kinds of things where we can use technology to reflect our own humanity to better us.

Creator of AI baby "Baby X" & facial animation technology pioneer

We take ethics very seriously – and it's important to never fool the user. It must be clear that you are dealing with a digital person, not a real person, and at the same time you cannot create any dependency.

Creator of AI baby "Baby X" & facial animation technology pioneer

The ultimate goal is to be in a state of flow with machines. Think about people working with horses, or herding cattle with a dog, they are examples of interactions with other intelligent creatures in a way which is fluid and allows us to achieve something we couldn't do ourselves.

Creator of AI baby "Baby X" & facial animation technology pioneer