From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
People think that life inside Silicon Valley firms is like life under an orange tree, where you suck on the oranges and everyone treats each other perfectly – but that's not quite right… people are ruthless, competitive… human.
I can't look an African-American parent in the eye for thinking about what they must tell their sons about what can happen to them on the streets of their country.
In the last 20 years I believe I have become a hybrid entrepreneur – believing in the power of technology and process, but also in the very deep humanistic point of view. I guess it's a weird mix of Italian with Silicon Valley.
I do believe there's something fundamentally essential about free play—the open-ended combination of elements not confined by a narrow context. This concept is vital not only to humanity but to life itself. Consider Johan Huizinga, the sociologist and anthropologist who, in his book 'Homo Ludens,' famously argued that play is a necessary precondition for culture. I find this perspective accurate.
This is why today women account for a mere 0.5% of recorded history.
It takes intellectuals to come up with some of the most moronic ideas possible.
Over Thousands of Years, globalisation has progressed through travel, trade, migration, spread of cultural influences and dissemination of knowledge and understanding
I assumed this was just a fact of life in the UK, but because I saw the warmth of some people's welcome in the business community in particular, I overlooked it…
Social media has been a wonderful thing; it allows celebrities to bypass the middle-man. Many celebrities have also been able to monetise their social-media and make extra money, often very serious amounts. Crucially, social media gives celebrities the opportunities to speak for themselves and set the record straight.
The essence of this connection lies in an enduring quest to effect positive change in the world. The judgement criteria revolve around whether the individual endeavored to make the world a better place. This book holds the key to one of the universe's greatest mysteries: the deciding factors for entry into heaven.
In markets like books, art, music, and Hollywood, it's extremely hard to predict which products will become runaway hits. In the early days, if a high-status person embraces a product, it can have an enormous impact on its trajectory. Influential people adopt and endorse a product, which gives it an initial push.
I think the democratisation of the image is probably one of the most important things that's happening right now. Everyone's a photographer now, everyone's got a camera, everyone's taking pictures. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean we have to be more critical about what we're looking at.