Basically if you study entrepreneurs, there is a misnomer: People think that entrepreneurs take risk, and they get rewarded because they take risk. In reality entrepreneurs do everything they can to minimize risk. They are not interested in taking ri...
I don't think anybody should do what they do in hopes of being successful. But I always expect myself to be successful at things. And if I'm not, I feel bad. I don't care for failure. I've failed at a number of things, and it's not my favorite state ...
Technological transformations give you the chance to set up new and ambitious ventures. That's what I did with FastWeb and that is what we are doing with Babelgum. This is much more than TV because we are making the content available all across the w...
Leverage is great when it works, and when it doesn't work, it creates a lot of issues. So I think if you limit the amount of leverage that people can borrow, or that banks can borrow, I think you'll find that you'll have a lot less issues going forwa...
I think the hedge-fund industry has taken a reputational turn for the worse, this dog-eat-dog stuff. I'm not just talking about Herbalife or J. C. Penney, but in other situations where the media really focuses on who's long and who's short. I don't t...
A peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will likely depend to a great extent on the economic development of a future Palestinian state. As I have argued before, private sector investment - especially in the West Bank - is going to p...
One of my heroes is a composer named James Bernard, and oh my God... I can still listen to his music today and be stirred and moved by it. But I think that you fall in love with... Well, again, when you're young, it really is more powerful. Much more...
The time I spend in the morning - praying, sipping coffee, and coming up with my list - is a ritual I relish. I have done it for so long now that I subconsciously measure whether or not the things I'm doing match with what I should be doing, what I w...
My job is to make certain that I've done what I was asked and my department has done what we were asked to do by the president and the first lady and the State Department. I believe that we accomplished that.
I know too that we Americans like to think of ourselves as cleaner than clean, a healthy nation who would never take anything when a recent poll suggested that 65 per cent of the population would risk dying in 10 years if they would be guaranteed Oly...
My father was a Tuskegee Airmen captain in the Air Force and a very strong personality. He believed in fairness and ethics and living up to the commitments you make to others. He ultimately became a judge, and he would talk to me over and over about ...
Going public for the sake of going public is not really an optimal thing. You're going public because as a company you believe it is the right thing to do and it will benefit the ability of the company to achieve its long-term objectives.
Increased physical activity during the school day can help children's attention, classroom behavior, and achievement test scores. Meanwhile, the decline of play is closely linked to ADHD; behavioral problems; and stunted social, cognitive, and creati...
During National Playground Safety Week, I'll celebrate common-sense safety. I'll also celebrate skinned knees and bruised elbows. I'll celebrate so-called 'dangerous' playgrounds - playgrounds with see-saws, zip lines and towering slides.
Toddlers need to get off the soccer field and onto the playground. Children need to get out of the gym and into neighborhood stickball games. We need to give kids room to create their own rules, set their own terms, and move their bodies in their own...
Play is under attack in our nation's schools - and shrinking recess periods are only part of the problem. Homework is increasing. Cities are building new schools without playgrounds. Safety concerns are prompting bans of tag, soccer, and even running...
I started digging and found that Israel signed a peace treaty with the United Arab Emirates after the country had diversified their economy, instead of being solely oil-based. This diversification had brought about modernization. I realized that if y...
If you see a wonderful archaic Greek marble object in a museum, it's not only that it's beautiful, but what comes to your mind is the fact that it's 2,600 or so years old, and it was done by a human being at that time who you have such a limited abil...
One of the greatest investments of our lifetime has been New York City real estate, and investors made the highest returns when they bought stuff during the 1970s and 1980s when people were getting mugged. The lesson is that you make the most money w...
At some point, all comics have to go out and be retail salesmen doing door-to-door. And this idea of somebody who totally knows their craft having to get up for free in front of a crowd to work out some stuff they're thinking in their head, still, af...
I am as non-accepting of medical quackery and unscientific approaches as anybody else. I've grown up as a card-carrying scientist, and I know the power of science to answer questions, and for many questions I don't know of anything better than scient...
