If you stop and think about it, the form of propulsion used today hasn't changed in over a thousand years... since the invention of fireworks by the Chinese.

Lots of people dream big and talk about big bold ideas but never do anything. I judge people by what they've done. The ratio of something to nothing is infinite. So just do something.

Did you know that Kodak actually invented the digital camera that ultimately put it out of business? Kodak had the patents and a head start, but ignored all that.

When I was a grad student at MIT, I had a chance to become friends with the Viking Mission's chief scientist, Dr. Gerald Soffen. Viking was the first Mars lander looking for signs of life on Mars.

Learning how to understand how technology evolves, using tools like a Technology Road Map, is what you need more than anything to ride on top of the tsunami instead of being crushed by it.

By 2020 the U.S. will be short 91,000 doctors. There's no way we can educate enough doctors to make up that shortfall, and other countries are far worse off.

WhatsApp is both disrupting and demonetizing the entire wireless industry, and now the Facebook acquisition provides the infrastructure needed for WhatsApp to begin offering voice calls. So instead of people paying on average $80 per month, users only have to pay $0.99 per year for the same services. Wireless carriers, beware.

As education becomes dematerialized, demonetized and democratized, every man, woman and child on the planet will be able to reap the benefits of knowledge. We're rapidly heading toward a world of education abundance.

People need to understand how exponential technologies are impacting the business landscape. They need to do some future-casting and look at how industries are evolving and being transformed.

As of the mid-90s, over 50 percent of women have a bachelor's and master's degree, compared to about 35 percent and 30 percent, respectively, in 1920.

One thing that humans still do better than computers is recognize images.

The constant monitoring of our emotional landscape and personal interactions is a bizarre concept. But it is one that could help many people.

Today, the smartphone in your pocket has a high-quality digital camera. Everyone - not just artists - is a photographer, and the explosion of photos taken annually proves it.

If anyone has seen success and failure on a global stage, it's my friend Steve Forbes.

When hiring, trust your feelings.

I was seeing a lot of entrepreneurs who were effectively working on the next photo-sharing app. I wanted to inspire them to go much bigger, bolder and more significant than that.

My feeling is that if you can make a big impact on the global literacy problem, you can uplift a big portion of society.

Because it's free, easy to use, and high-quality, photography is now a fixture in our daily lives - something we take for granted.

I think people are dreaming big because they have the tools to dream big. I hope that people are dreaming big because it makes them feel good about their lives.

Every generation feels it has the problems that will destroy it. That's because we can perceive them a long time before we have the ability to fix them.

We are effectively living in a world of communications and information abundance.

If the risk is fully aligned with your purpose and mission, then it's worth considering.

Make it clear up front what the aim of the company is. Stay true to your authentic vision.

I think we're heading towards a world of what I call 'technological socialism.' Where technology - not the government or the state - will begin to take care of us. Technology will provide our healthcare for free. The best education in the world - for free.

In the 1820s, the U.S., Japan, and the U.K. were some of the only countries where the average population received at least two years of formal schooling.

At the turn of the 20th century, the disparity in literacy here in the U.S. largely came down to race. Nearly half of minorities at that time - 45 percent - were illiterate, while 94 percent of white citizens were literate.

I think about the Internet and cell phones and jets and spaceships, and I wonder, 'What's going to make that look ancient?'

Remember when vacation photos meant toting along a bulky camera?

Nothing gets us down more than watching violence on television or reading about war and brutality in the newspaper. The truth is, there's a massive reduction in the amount of violence around the world.

I get demoralized by organizations that start off with a mission and pull back when they find it's risky.

In the 1940s, about 20% of people in the U.S. had graduated from high school, but less than 5% continued their education to get bachelors' degrees or higher.

Many have built their careers buttressing the status quo, reinforcing what they've already accomplished, and resisting the radical thinking that can topple their legacy - not exactly the attitude you want when trying to drive innovation forward.

If the idea is really new and unique and big, other people will all think it is bad and is going to fail.

Large companies and government agencies have a lot to protect and therefore are not willing to take big risks. A large company taking a risk can threaten its stock price. A government agency taking a risk can threaten congressional investigation.

I've stopped watching TV news. They couldn't pay me enough money.

I think that we're living in a time where there are trillion-dollar opportunities that never existed before.

3D printing will massively reduce the cost of certain products as the cost of labor is removed.

I founded a launch company called International Microspace when I graduated medical school in 1989. We were trying to build a microsatellite launcher.

Now the amygdala is our early warning detector, our danger detector. It sorts and scours through all of the information looking for anything in the environment that might harm us. So given a dozen news stories, we will preferentially look at the negative news.

My childhood dreams were focused on being part of the effort to make humanity a multiplanetary species.

In 1980, during my sophomore year at MIT, I realized that the school didn't have a student space organization. I made posters for a group I called Students for the Exploration and Development of Space and put them up all over campus. Thirty-five people showed up. It was the first thing I ever organized, and it took off!

I don't think the space station is innovative. Going to the moon was innovative because we had no idea how to do it.

Companies have too many experts who block innovation. True innovation really comes from perpendicular thinking.

As you may know, I'm the co-founder and co-chairman of an asteroid company called Planetary Resources that is backed by a group of eight billionaires to implement the bold mission of extracting resources from near-Earth asteroids.

Back in 2007, I had the opportunity to meet Professor Stephen Hawking through the X PRIZE Foundation. In my first conversation with him I learned that he was passionate about flying into space someday.

As lower-cost phones begin to penetrate, they'll become the educator and physician everywhere on the planet.

Eight billion people will have Internet access by 2020.

I have the general philosophy of creating the future you want to see.

If you give people unlimited time and money, they'll do things the same old way. But if they have to achieve the goal in a brief time, they'll either give up or try something new.

You might hear people decry the loss of privacy in today's world, but radical transparency is dramatically reducing violence everywhere. Most violent things happen in the dark when no one's watching, whether it's an oppressive dictator or someone causing violence in the inner city.