If I may return to the biology analogy too; human beings get a lot of benefit from walking erect, but our backs and our feet are sometimes sore because we are made of parts that were put together before we could walk erect.

Think of bootstrapping like a multi-stage booster rocket, where each stage propels and prepares you for the next, and the momentum continues building.

The internet has a natural pressure to bubble us up and vulcanise society, it makes it less comfortable for us to be around people who think differently, and more comfortable to be around people who think the same as us.

Truth is an aspiration which none of us can ever know that we have attained. Nobody has a pipeline to the truth; nobody is imbued with divine revelation. We seek truth through institutions like science, journalism, governance, justice systems and record keeping. These are the bodies that make us collectively more suited to attain the truth.

The real culprit behind the sickness often goes unnoticed: it's the disruption to our circadian rhythm caused by traveling across time zones. Our bodies are designed to operate on a natural rhythm.

While the crisis made the problems of the euro-structure clear, they were present long before. Indeed, the euro helped create the crisis: for the markets seemed to have vastly overestimated the extent to which the single market/single currency had reduced risk (another example of market irrationality), leading to excessive lending to the afflicted countries.

People who learn fast and who have some level of 'natural' talent may go home from practice early because they don't have to work as hard as others to get to their target level of achievement, but when you study super-achievers, you find that instead of going home early, they work late, and really pull-away from the crowd.

In this industry, whether you're learning to act or write, you often develop skills in isolation. It's easy to see your own discipline as encompassing the whole creative universe. However, once you're on set, the reality of the collaboration involved becomes apparent very quickly.

Every child should free to be a child. Every child should be free to cry and laugh. Every child should be free to learn and grow. Every child should be free to play and enjoy his or her childhood. Freedom is the key to childhood, and we must protect that.

One of the defining experiences I had with CNET, a digital media company where I was the fourth employee back in the dawn of the internet, was recognizing the power of asking for help.

I hate that moniker because it assumes or implies a reduction in yield. I typically think impact investing, on the whole, can generate better risk-adjusted yields than the alternatives.

When you contrast that with human rights defenders, they are willing to self-sacrifice, to give everything to defend the community… not just their community, but everyone's rights. Why can't politicians be like that?