From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
In my lab, we can control ageing easily. We have mice where we can dial up the ageing process or reverse it. It's not that hard when you know how. Until recently, we didn't know there was a backup copy of the information which has been corrupted, and now we can reset it using an embryonic gene trick. Ultimately, I think we'll be able to pop a pill and reset our body's age.
By exploring the unknown, we prepare ourselves, getting us closer to the cutting edge of science and, possibly, readying us for the next giant leap. Fortune favours the prepared mind.
If you want to have a great startup idea, don't try to think of a startup. If you focus on creating a startup, you'll be grounding yourself in the present, studying customers living in the present, their problems in the present, and their unmet needs in the present. You want to define a future market by living in the future.
Video games are a medium through which we explore the nature and implications of computers. Recalling the early days of computers, large mainframes were used for serious tasks like missile trajectory calculations during the day. At night, enthusiasts would experiment with these machines, conjuring imaginary worlds of cave networks or empires, continuously discovering more engaging problems.
For me, it wasn't about creating a traditional business plan but rather channelling my 1960s mindset—I aimed to amaze and captivate people. I wanted passersby to wonder, 'Have you seen that? What's going on there?' Ultimately, this desire to make an impression has been the connecting thread in everything I've undertaken.
Upon inquiry, I learned that we were using American technology, suitable for American roads but not Indian ones. So, the next step was understanding the market, and we went to the field, spoke to the truckers and understood their requirements and expectations.
The average is the enemy of the marketer, because it actually disguises what you really need to know, which is the outliers, the unusual use cases, the anecdotal eccentricity, where most of the really valuable information lies.
We all have the opportunity to be on the level of Da Vinci or Franklin because we all have access to so many different forms of knowledge. Those who study philosophy, the arts and sciences together can make connections at that very high level.
If we are to migrate our lives to the internet, we need a decentralized infrastructure that enables everyone to have control of their assets without being robbed. This is the same for money, right? Offline money is real money – nobody can take it from you. If you deposit that money with your bank or have a digital wallet with a bank, they can freeze your wallet, they can block transactions.
I was working on the principle that if you only listen to the voices around you, you'll amalgamate them into something that already exists… My view was that consensus isn't going to build something that will change the game.
The sustainability of traditions relies on their ability to evolve. This was the crux of my message: how can we help this tradition evolve? Because at that time, it was certainly losing its vitality.
I would love to say that we knew all the answers in advance, but the truth is that we discovered our product and opportunity, rather than planning for it. We started a company to build a massively multiplayer game, and in the process, it very quickly became apparent to us what the utility of Slack was as we used a prototype to collaborate internally.