Many people, companies, and organizations are trying to protect the past at any cost. We see this regularly in business as the incumbent vs. innovator fight, but I think it's more profound than that. It's literally a difference in point of view.

Technology doesn't address everything - for example, air travel still sucks.

While I've had plenty of ups and downs, dealt with my share of failure, and struggled through emotionally difficult periods, I'm fundamentally an optimist.

While I live a busy life, the pace ebbs and flows.

While we should certainly be investing in our own STEM education, we should take advantage of the thousands of international students who come here to study and are ready to fill these gaps immediately upon graduation.

Immigrants have historically been an entrepreneurial bunch.

In 2016, you no longer have to be in Silicon Valley to launch a successful startup. Colorado is home to many.

As an investor, I'm always looking for the next great American company. Who will create tomorrow's Twitter, Facebook, or Google?

I have trouble sleeping maybe one night a year. On that special night, I get up and read on the couch until I fall asleep.

I have several close friends who are insomniacs. Over the years, I've heard their stories about being up in the middle of the night, completely awake. I see them yawn at 11 A.M. and know that, regardless of what they are doing, they'd probably rather be in bed sleeping. I've always had sympathy for them, but I've never really understood it.

Accepting that part of the process of writing is deleting a lot of what you write is soothing, at least to me.

I often get asked how I write so much. As any writer knows, the answer is to write a lot more than you actually publish.

When I think about the books I've written, it probably takes 150,000-200,000 words to get a 50,000 page book. Highlighting something and hitting Cmd-X is second nature.

I know a lot of companies that have a very well defined post-acquisition process. However, many of them don't take into consideration the dynamics and personalities of the acquiree. Instead, they assume that everyone will happily be assimilated.

Usually, the first three months post acquisition are up and down. The acquirer and the acquiree are trying to figure out how to interact. The founders of the acquiree are usually tired from the deal process and adjusting to their new reality.

Ultimately, the goal is to use acquisitions to compress time on product development and get people on the team, especially in senior roles, who can help build out areas of the company they have experience in.

In my world, historical revenue is the least interesting thing to consider in an acquisition strategy. The goal is to acquire technology that is on your product roadmap or people that fit culturally within your organization and help you execute on your roadmap faster.

By 2002, I realized that what was classically called a rollup strategy was not generally effective, at least not for me.

I love using a targeted acquisition approach in conjunction with a business that has a clear strategy and strong organic growth.

I especially love right-now sci-fi: stuff that happens in current time but incorporates a scientific breakthrough that is currently being explored.

Ever since I learned about the concept of garbage collection in 6.001 at MIT in 1984 while using Scheme on HP Chipmunks, I've always thought of dreaming as the same as garbage collection for a computer.

I love dreams.

I can now check Oregon off the 'marathon in every state list.'

Periodically, at the end of a conversation, someone will ask me, 'Is there something I can do for you?' I used to answer with 'Do something that is helpful to something or someone in my world.'