I've been very engaged in Illinois and Chicago civic activities for a long time; mostly around building businesses and helping entrepreneurs grow companies, but also around education and education reform.
Unions inherently create an 'us versus them' dynamic that makes winning against a company's management the top goal, not serving customers, innovating, or in the case of education, teaching kids.
Of the 55 refineries closed in America in the last 10 years, they were all closed for economic reasons, mostly oil company mergers. Not a single one was closed for environmental purposes or objections.
For me, prayer is not so much me setting out a shopping list of requests for God to consider as it is a way of 'keeping company with God.'
Building companies involves creating great wealth. If that means I am an oligarch, OK, it's fine. But if being an oligarch is about buying football clubs, it is not for me.
The most important thing for us is investing and making companies great, and then they have all the options they want, whether that's to go public or stay private.
The early part of my career was the 1990s, and I was living in New York working as an actor. It was the world I was in. A lot of companies had a great deal of money.
I didn't want to just work within Hollywood when I started a production company. I wanted to be able to collaborate with great artists from all over the world.
I work for a place that's been great to me over the years, and when you make a mistake, you're hurting your company as well.
I do sometimes watch 'Dr. Who' and while the stories barely make sense, if at all, the doctor is such great company I don't care.
I've always found a way to make my way, and now I've had the fortune of being hired by a great company - Chrysler Corporation - one of the original Big Three.
Eventually though, I'd like to have my own production company. Then I could create great opportunities not only for myself, but for other actors as well.
One of the great things about the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, which my company iRobot designed, is that it's too cheap not to be autonomous.
Now, national conventions are largely an excuse for companies and party leaders to throw parties for delegates to attend, to network and have a good time.
Groupon looked like a very high valuation, but any investment in a great company at any stage is almost always a good investment.
For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country.
There's this joy that comes from sitting down to solve a problem and standing up when it's done and good. Building a company or managing people is never just done.
If you really hate George Bush, you don't want to read about his hobbies or that he's nice to his friends or that he's good company at dinner.
Well we have a good working relationship with Microsoft at the development level. But let's not kid ourselves, this is a company with enormous resources and talented people, and there is a certain pride that comes along with that for them and for us.
As a traditionally risk-averse nation, India has rarely been at the forefront of innovation. Indian companies have mostly imitated others and became very good at it.
Yes, I was invited to make the sound environment at a booth of a huge electronic company, during the Hanover Industrial Fair in 1973. It was a job. Slightly good paid. But not as much as my producer then told the press.
