Emotions are perception, but perception of the body itself. You see something scary like a bear, that triggers all kinds of physiological changes in your body. Your heart rate increases, your breath quickens, and the perception of those changes is the emotion. Emotion is another kind of controlled hallucination but geared to the interior of the body rather than the outside world.

My goal was simply attracting large numbers of customers because mass appeal guarantees profit. I often advised not to obsess over immediate profits but to prioritise popularity. Like Amazon or Apple, success comes from creating something that garners mass recognition and love.

When I set a goal for myself, and achieve that goal, that's what winning is to me. When you set out on that yellow-brick-road of life to fulfil your goals, just be the best you can be – and whether that means you finish as champion, first, second, tenth, whatever… if you've done your best? You're winning.

You can think of the human mind as a measuring instrument. We're making judgements all the time and studies show that on a day-to-day basis, when presented with the same evidence, our judgements may be different.

Who would you rather die than betray? If it’s just shareholders, don’t expect anybody else to trust you.

Risk of a double dip recession in advanced economies (US, Japan, Eurozone) has now risen to 40%.

We need to challenge the notion that if you don't feel like a superhero, then you must not be the right person for the job. Today's most important challenges are met by teams of people, as opposed to a single superhero.

On the night of my 30th birthday, I was at a bar in San Francisco... I walked out of that bar at midnight, drunk. I didn't even own running gear, I had some comfortable silk boxer shorts on – took off my pants – and took off down an alleyway stumbling south without knowing that a town called Half Moon Bay was nearly 30 miles away. When the alcohol wore off, I had this epiphany. I looked up and saw heaven – I saw the stars – it was the first moment of clarity I had since I'd given up running. It made me realise that perhaps I was on this earth to be a runner – I wasn't happy being a business guy, it was making me miserable. I was comfortable, but miserable.

I mean, people ask me, 'Should I do a startup?' And I say, 'Well, how important is work-life balance to you?' And if they say anything other than 'It's not important,' I say, 'You shouldn't do it.' Because it's a killing field.

Guess what, it turns out that you can't make big-breakthroughs without crazy optimism and idealism! With the exception of Elon Musk, that attitude is largely missing right now.

Crypto-currency is a means by which people can exchange property in a secure way without the use of a central institution like a bank or the Federal Reserve.

Initially, I harboured a somewhat naive belief that the system's failings were largely due to a scarcity of people willing to do the right thing. Working for international organisations, I was caught up in the belief that we could fix broken systems simply by introducing the right resources, processes, and intentions. However, I've come to realize that good intentions alone are insufficient.