From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I hesitate to respond bluntly but 'design' to many businesses is an invisible element somehow present without effort…like 'free wifi'. And, as my son says, to his generation, 'wifi is like air'––taken for granted and only notable when the quality is bad or (god forbid!) it is not there at all.
It's about the pursuit of a vision. It's about being brutally honest each day. It's about truly understanding the role of housekeeping versus the relationship with your customer.
Film is a reflection of society, both present and past. I think the film and it's innovations sometimes has to catch up to society but sometimes it leads society too. Movies are stories, movies are people who come out with ideas about something they want to say, something they want to tell someone.
I also want to dispel the hero-myth of entrepreneurs, that they're somehow super-gifted individuals who are better than me or the people I know. I don't know any like that – my friends sleep late, smell funny, do stupid stuff and have weird joint problems. I don't know any superhumans.
Fear isn't just a neurophysiological phenomenon; it's also socio-cultural. We're enculturated to fear; it's something that we inherit, acquire, and learn – which implies that there is possibility of 'unlearning' our fear.
Without what Becker called 'cultural world views' we would be overwhelmed by existential terror. Beliefs about reality that we share foster psychological equanimity by giving us a sense of meaning and value.
I have always been attracted to creative people and been fascinated by what drives them and what they are made of; whether that be a recording artist, an author or a broadcaster. The most exciting thing about it is the fact that you can support somebody on a mission to create something unique, something that creates impact- and often at the level that we are operating at – something culturally relevant.
A lot of that feeling of alienation that you see in The Office, Dilbert, and so-forth is driven by people feeling that they don't understand context, and ultimately decisions don't make sense.
We're also at a time where political culture has become popular culture – in other words, it's become a central talking point for everyone… it's become the water cooler conversation – and political comedy and satire have really come to the fore.
Rather than politicising our cultural challenges, we have to allow people to feel comfortable about their culture and about who they are, and to accept each other as equals.
It's not just the internet which is contributing to these changes, its mobile and digital technology generally, it makes everyone a journalist. This is why the internet has blown apart the notion of journalism, because it gets rid of the gatekeepers.
More than most artforms, music is the one that can't be beaten, tamed or matched. It just impacts your soul. I love producing music that gives people hope, makes them feel good, and gets them dancing and moving.