Why We Should Be Optimistic About the Future

You want to have a great deal of conviction of where you're trying to head, but you want to have a lot of flexibility inherent in how you're going to get there and what the tactics are. Then, you want to be able to run a lot of experiments against that, and you can diversify your risk against any one theory by doing so.

We have top-end universities, yes, but with the capacity to teach only a microscopic percentage of the 4 million new 18-year-olds in the U.S. each year, or the 120 million new 18-year-olds in the world each year.

One of the things about the Valley that I find outsiders miss the most is that it feels like it's all moving so fast, and yet, any of the important companies or any of the important products take a decade or more to build. Everything important takes a long time, so a lot of it actually feels quite slow. Long-term orientation is absolutely necessary... See more

Globally, carbon emissions are rising and resource utilization is rising. In the U.S., carbon emissions and resource utilization are actually falling... We have figured out how to grow our economy while reducing our use of natural resources, which is a completely unexpected twist.

The 100-inch TV set that covers your wall is going to cost you 100 bucks. The four-year college degree is going to cost $1 million ... The four-year college degree is basically—just think about it technologically—it's an unchanged experience from 100 years ago. Getting a degree from a college university today, it's the same set of activities, it's ... See more