Nowadays people talk about PayPal's founders as prescient geniuses who would inevitably change the world. It was, however, not so obvious that PayPal would taste its first major success by helping people sell Beanie Babies on eBay. But they had a vis...
The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don't invest, their holding too much money. We haven't heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody's afraid of the government ...
Gun owners and non-gun owners alike agree on expanding background checks, making gun trafficking a serious crime with stiff penalties, making it illegal for all stalkers and all domestic abusers to buy guns, and expanding mental health resources so t...
I mostly eat healthy. I just do. I'm not a vegan for health reasons - although obviously I'm 20 pounds lighter than when I started. I stayed 20 pounds lighter. I feel better. My friends say I look better. All that's true. But I'm a vegan for compassi...
So long as I can stay mentally alert - inquiring, curious - I want to keep going. I love my wife and my children, but I don't want to sit around at home with them. We go on safaris and things like that. I can do that for a couple of weeks a year. I'm...
When you look at every studio in the '20s or '30s, from Louis B. Mayer to Jack Warner, you see people who started with one plan and quickly shifted gears to adapt to a changing world. One of my favorite stories is that Walt Disney mortgaged his house...
Education used to be a slice of life, something you did as a child through college, and then spent the rest of your life working, and then death. Everything is about to change. I believe education will become something that fits seamlessly into life,...
The Internet has allowed a lot of access - people feel entitled to change the ending of games, for example. So there are a lot more voices coming at you all the time, which I think has its effect on creative decision making and possibly makes people ...
I stay very much undercover and behind the scenes - most places I go, people don't know how important I am. But I will admit that my favorite piece of clothing to wear out is an old T-shirt from a Boston tour that does have a Boston logo. But that do...
When I was 8 or 9, I started using bulletin board systems, which was the precursor to the Internet, where you'd dial into... a shared system and shared computers. I've had an email address since the late '80s, when I was 8 or 9 years old, and then I ...
I use many different gadgets connected with computers; I use PCs, laptops and a Palm Pilot. I also use the Internet to visit websites, especially within Polish-language Internet. I usually go to political discussion groups and sites - of course, as I...
Google is working on self-driving cars, and they seem to work. People are so bad at driving cars that computers don't have to be that good to be much better. Any time you stand in line at the DMV and look around, you're like, 'Oh, my God, I wish all ...
When I launched the development of the GNU system, I explicitly said the purpose of developing this system is so we can use our computers and have freedom, thus if you use some other free system instead but you have freedom, then it's a success. It's...
My dirty little secret is I don't drive at all, though I have my license and I renew it every five years. I'm phobic. I keep worrying if I drive, I'll end up killing someone. I hoped that by writing about a car crash, I might understand and heal this...
When you're drawing something, you kind of run a movie in your head. You might close your eyes or stare into the distance and kind of see a movie unfolding and, you know, grab a certain moment or think, 'Oh, yeah, that's when we need just the point t...
Kids who grow up in radically different environments are always going to have different comfort levels with regard to a topic. If you don't live near a train track, it's hard to squash a penny that way, and if you live in an apartment in New York Cit...
I know people think we drive around in these nice cars and we do whatever we want and our parents will pay our credit cards, but that's not the case. Sure, my parents were generous; I got a nice car at 16, but at 18 I was cut off. I've worked really ...
For me, not owning a car means I may spend a little extra time on public transportation, but I can use that time to read, catch up on work projects, and make the phone calls I couldn't get to earlier. Plus, I never waste time at the mechanics or gas ...
Since September 11, security has been increased everywhere, and we have new IDs to get on to the Fox lot. I drove to the security gate, but realized I'd left my ID in my other car. I just broke into that voice - 'Hey, man, I'm Bart Simpson. Who else ...
My personal fascination with the power of the crowd has been growing: Exactly what can a 'crowd' accomplish? We know crowds can raise billions of dollars, create Wikipedia, and even design and build small autonomous drones. But how about something la...
As a child, I did what any normal kid who grew up without any electricity would do - I spent countless hours working on a computer wired to my parents' car battery... and learned how to code. This natural passion for computers lead me into the Intern...
