Philosophy

Risk is actually an asset. Fear isn't meant to be dismissed; it's intended to be embraced. Fear sharpens your focus, enhances your performance, and boosts your resilience. This is something many haven't realised—fear is a superpower meant to be embraced, not avoided.

Having a purpose is the ultimate hack for making the entrepreneurial process enjoyable. It lets you move beyond endless discussions about work-life balance and the overused narrative that entrepreneurship is 'so hard.' The truth is, you've only made it difficult because it lacks personal meaning.

Long ago, I attended an Anthony Robbins seminar where he spoke of CANI—constant and never-ending improvement—which I adapted into constant and never-ending innovation. Nothing is entirely new, but innovation has defined my journey, despite its ups and downs.

I think that most of us, when we give to charity, hope that we ultimately help people live happier, less miserable lives. So we should measure what we care about.

I often have odd conversations where people say, 'Should we take happiness seriously?' And I pause and ask, 'How do you feel about misery and suffering—are those not bad? Do they not matter at all?' Then they admit, 'Oh yeah'. I then ask 'so, don't you think it's good if people enjoy their lives?' And they say, 'I suppose so.' So, everyone agrees happiness matters to some extent – but we often forget this and need to bring it to the surface.

There's no way electrical signals alone can produce the sensation of taste. That's the hard problem of consciousness: qualia—the sensations and feelings through which we know the world and ourselves—bear no resemblance to electrical impulses, and physics offers no explanation for how one could give rise to the other.

Co-Inventor of the Microprocessor & Founder of Zilog

There's no real creativity in AI, since every path is governed by an algorithm. In other words, you can trace every step to see exactly why the computer produced a given output. It remains absolutely deterministic.

Co-Inventor of the Microprocessor & Founder of Zilog

We are fields endowed with consciousness and free will, existing in a reality deeper than the familiar realm of space, time, and interacting objects. Consciousness exists independently of any physical form; it resides in the underlying field that instantiates the matter and energy we measure in space and time.

Co-Inventor of the Microprocessor & Founder of Zilog

Behind every free‑will decision there must be comprehension and intention—and that's where consciousness comes in: the capacity to understand the meaning of symbols. In science, 'information' refers only to the probability of symbols occurring, not to their meaning. Thus science's definition of information discards meaning from reality, but for conscious beings, meaning—not the symbol itself—is what truly matters.

Co-Inventor of the Microprocessor & Founder of Zilog

Consciousness lies beyond the framework of quantum mechanics. It must be regarded as a primitive of the universe itself, not merely of brains. If consciousness is a universal primitive, then the entire totality of what exists is conscious and desires self‑knowledge.

Co-Inventor of the Microprocessor & Founder of Zilog

The French Revolution really is this incredible hinge in the story of Western political thought. For a long time, it was just taken for granted that the French Revolution was the starting point of political modernity.

In the 18th century, they're kind of taking stock of how, in just about 100 years, all this classical learning had been overturned. Looking back on everything that's happened, they construct this narrative of how human reason has progressed.

Revolution was, in a way, the original problem of political thought. Constitutionalism is a Greek answer to the problem of revolution. You want to avoid revolution? Then you need to design a constitution in a certain way—so that it's balanced and less likely to be overturned by revolution.

For thousands of years of human history—let alone pre-history—there was never this sense, so common to us now, of a future likely to be radically different from the present. There was really a sense that humanity had already reached its peak, and so the question wasn't what comes next that's better, but rather how to prevent decline and loss.

When you're in the present, looking forward, your brain sees change as scary. But from the far side, looking back, the fear fades.

Former Navy submarine captain and author of "Turn the Ship Around!

I particularly like the six-month shift for operational decisions. But for life choices, look at Jeff Bezos. When deciding to start Amazon, he projected himself into the far future. He asked: 'When I'm 80, what will I regret more — starting the company and failing, or never starting it at all?'

Former Navy submarine captain and author of "Turn the Ship Around!