From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
If you know something, and if the reason you're confident is that I told you that thing? That means I wasn't a good educator at that moment because you decided that based on some authority figure, something is real, or true. Instead, an educator should teach you how to think about a problem – how to come to some form of understanding.
Success is as very personal benchmark – it's what the individual wants. To understand success, you have to know what makes you happy… not what makes your parents, spouse, teacher or children happy… but what makes you happy.
I remain a technical optimist… the problem is not artificial intelligence, it's natural stupidity.
Western civilisation has veered off course; we have de-sacralised the world in which we live. We are collectively insane, and we need to mount our own intervention.
The act of humans making choices will become a mere memory. We'll be spectators in a novel arena. But is this the zenith of liberty or just a cage?
Before you succeed, you must first learn to fail. If you keep repeating the same thing, you're always going to fail, you need to adjust. We have to look at failures and use them as an educational tool.
If our future is to count as a utopia, we cannot allow a massive oppressed class of hyper-sentient, uncomfortable digital beings. We want it to be good for all kinds of minds.
I never had an ethical dilemma with what was going on as a child, it was about pure survival. The kids that survived were the ones who were clever enough to continually get a meal.
My parents instilled in me the belief that everyone you meet can teach you something, regardless of their age, background, or education.
Music is woven into the fabric of the universe. As far back as Pythagoras and Kepler, scientists were writing about the fact that music was intrinsic in the planets… part of the harmonic series in sound. Music is built into our neurology, our survival instincts and our communication.
The true measure of success, as I see it, lies in the effort to effect positive change in the world. However, this perspective isn't universally embraced. The feeling of success, it's crucial to clarify, has little to do with financial gain or even fame. These are two entirely distinct concepts.
From the guys who started Adobe to Steve Jobs, and everyone in between…. for the people I documented, money was secondary… They knew absolutely they would make money, but changing the world and doing cool stuff was the primary goal; that was their mission.