Quantum mechanics is a consistent mathematical structure, not that difficult to understand in itself, which nature has chosen. The confusing thing is that nature chose something that doesn't feel intuitive to us. It has a reputation for being mystifying mainly because of its history rather than what it really is as a theory.

I could have been born in the third century as a goat herder in Mongolia, or even as a goat. This is the realization that should open up a mental horizon where we can say, 'I know I'm going to die – maybe in the future, maybe in the next few minutes – and therefore every minute I'm here is precious.'

The fruit of addiction to success is redefining yourself in terms of one activity. When you take that away, there's a deep loss of identity. To the striver, that addiction is success. It activates the same neurobiology and dopamine pathways as alcohol or drugs.

Music can help us heal and achieve therapeutic outcomes by tapping into various neurochemical circuits that influence mood and behaviour. Ours was the first lab to show that listening to music releases the brain's natural pain relievers—opioids. Relaxing music can modulate prolactin, a soothing, tranquilizing hormone. Music also releases dopamine which helps us to focus and motivates us to stay on task.

I do not approach challenges with the sole aim of targeting the largest customers in established markets to replace current players. Instead, I focus on the overlooked, marginalized customers who often find the products of big players unaffordable. By catering to them, that is how we initially found our foothold.

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.

Sometimes it doesn't matter if the other side doesn't care about fairness; provided you do, you explain what's going on. I'm now playing his game and I pick something that's arbitrary. And now it's arbitrary vs. arbitrary versus principle versus arbitrary.

You cannot expend more energy than you can consume. That's a fundamental law of physics. If you do, you starve, you die, and you remove yourself from the gene pool. Biological systems have therefore been under enormous selective pressure to develop highly efficient intelligence.

So many of our systems of power are reliant on people putting themselves forward and guess what- people who are power-hungry will put themselves forward for positions of power. We need to seek out people not just rely on self-selection. We need to headhunt people who have demonstrated leadership capability and integrity rather than just relying on those who speak well or who are members of the right 'club.'

Unfortunately, by my definition, many leaders are mentally unfit, because they spend most of their day in negative emotional states and they're usually not consciously aware of it, because they're externally focused.

The classic 'lightbulb moment' is largely a myth. Remarkably, about half of these founders engaged in what we've termed a 'deliberate ideation process.' Intriguingly, they set out to establish a company with no specific idea in mind.

As a matter of history it's crucial to distinguish between what I have taken to call 'mercantile capitalism' and what I like to call 'modern capitalism'. Mercantile capitalism I think of as prevailing in Britain, Holland, Spain and elsewhere from around 1500 to 1800 or so.