Control of the browser that people use to access the Web turned out to be far less meaningful than the search engine we use as the starting point for finding Web information. I switch between Safari, Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome browsers all day. I never stray from Google search.

It's hard to improve our schools. It's hard to redistribute wealth created by the concentration of technological and financial power or to increase middle-class wages. But it might be easier to lower middle-class costs by building more housing.

Employers are as sensitive to housing costs as their employees, which is why, when we build more houses, we create more jobs.

We need a government policy all-out in favor of more, denser housing.

What employing thousands of people in the middle of the country has taught me is how good and hard-working Americans in all cities are, and how much most of the country resents our wealthiest cities' sense of entitlement and condescension.

Most of the tech CEOs I know used to think that moving to the Midwest or the South was beneath us, a good tactic for the Boeings of the world who don't need the kind of rare skills we depend on, who have to grub for profits when we reach for growth. But if Amazon can't afford to keep growing in Seattle, who can?

So many tech companies have embraced a mission that they say is larger than profits. Once you wrap yourself up in a moral flag, you have to carry it to the top of other hills.

If you actually believe in free speech and not simply the free distribution of other people's intellectual property, you should let journalists, law firms, and investors exercise their rights to it alongside your own.

I just don't like bullies. Especially hypocritical bullies.

As a captain of industry, I would prefer more tax breaks to help people buy houses, but as a citizen, I realize someone has to pay.

The tech industry's love for scrappy, accessible founders adds to the pressure. You're expected to lead by example, to roll up your sleeves, to know everything going on.

At different points, I applied to graduate school. I got into medical school. I thought about being a writer. I thought about being an investment banker. I just didn't know what I wanted to do with myself. I think the thing that best suits me about being a C.E.O. is that you get to exercise many different talents and wear many different hats.

I think the corporate world is pretty starved for personality. The reason you have comic strips like 'Dilbert' and sitcoms like 'The Office' is that people just can't be genuine human beings in a corporate environment. So if you can really be your own self, even if it's a little bit different, I think people are really drawn to that.

I'm an identical twin, and I felt that with my twin brother, we sort of formed this unassailable force, and it gave me the confidence to be different. Even if I was a goofball, my twin brother was a goofball with me, so I didn't have to worry about fitting in as much. I was able to march to my own drummer.

Steve Jobs knows how to hold his hand out, to build beautiful products and make people pay for them.

Once you become more like Madison Avenue, you become acutely sensitive to what's going to annoy your clients.

I think companies psych themselves out and say, 'Now that we're public, we've got to get all stuffy. We've got to be a certain way,' and the entrepreneurial spirit dies. What you got to keep alive is the intimacy, the energy, this crazed sense of purpose.

If we don't give the authors of music, film, literature, and journalism a way to control the distribution of their goods, the quality of all of these creative efforts will decline.

Short of a space-alien invasion or an Oklahoma tornado, there is almost no problem that a democracy can tackle in a year. But that isn't why we have a government. We have a government to solve the problems that greedy, short-sighted businessmen like me can't.

Those in technology who can afford to stay in Silicon Valley all know it as one of the most beautiful places to live in the world, but a wariness has sunk in as folks from other walks of life are forced to leave: coffee shops are wall-to-wall with aspiring entrepreneurs, and restaurants buzz with talk of valuations and venture capital.

You have to be sort of an emotional steward to really get a business to do something hard - to take people up the hill, to conquer the mountain, to sack the city. You have got to be a maniac.

Most CEOs walk around the office like we own the place, without realizing that the place itself isn't worth owning: a business's value comes from the people who walk out the door every night, who have to decide each morning whether to walk back in. One of the simplest things you can do as a leader is honor their choice and appreciate their work.

I do think entrepreneurs need to be smart, but there's another scale I never evaluated myself on that is now the source of my deepest strength: Not how much brains I have, but how much love I have.

I think if I had gone to a private school and been coddled a little bit, I wouldn't be as tough as I am now.