From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Even if there's no profound cultural difference between brown, black and white Britons… they speak the same language, eat the same food, abstain from going to the same churches… identity culture assigns significance to their bodily differences, and so race exists.
Nothing in this world has deep enough roots to sustain us. We keep grasping for something in the world that we think will ease our existential pain, but the pain itself is a result of over-identifying with the world.
The ultimate goal is to be in a state of flow with machines. Think about people working with horses, or herding cattle with a dog, they are examples of interactions with other intelligent creatures in a way which is fluid and allows us to achieve something we couldn't do ourselves.
We are first generation entrepreneurs, with middle class values, coming from middle class backgrounds, we never expected to be so wealthy! Our first reaction therefore is to share.
If you're not careful, possessions can end up owning you. Eventually, the car became part of my identity; it represented who I was, which isn't healthy. I want everyone to become wealthy and experience this firsthand because once they do, they'll realize material possessions aren't fulfilling.
Nature has evolved the human race for individuals to be very different from each other. Half of us are thinkers, and we proceed according to the facts. The other half of us are feelers. Nature says you need both kinds of people to push humanity forward.
The iron in the haemoglobin in your blood was cooked up in the heart of a massive star that blew up about 8 billion years ago. We understand now in pretty good detail, how intimately connected we are with the cosmos.
Humanity, having never faced any serious competition or whole-species-threats, feels relatively safe from existential events and cannot conceive any threats it may be creating.
My parents instilled in me the belief that everyone you meet can teach you something, regardless of their age, background, or education.
If our senses are really how we understand the world, and there are differences in those sensory windows, then our internal world will be different. Perhaps these differences explain the diversity of beliefs.
You can't be successful unless you're genuine as a human being and honest. The startups in our world that are really successful are both genuine and honest; they bring that pure level of passion to the table and they're very honest about the world around them.
Most accomplished individuals who continue to work well into their later years seldom wake up thinking solely about the day's earnings. Instead, their motivation lies in pursuing a passion, dedicating their lives to something they genuinely love. For them, money becomes more of a metric—a way to keep score.