I invented the cordless extension cord.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.

I think the thing we see is that as people are using video games more, they tend to watch passive TV a bit less. And so using the PC for the Internet, playing video games, is starting to cut into the rather unbelievable amount of time people spend watching TV.

Science is magic that works.

In this experiment, made on the 9th of October, 1876, actual conversation, backwards and forwards, upon the same line, and by the same instruments reciprocally used, was successfully carried on for the first time upon a real line of miles in length.

We polled Tesla owners, do you want autopilot disabled or not. Not one person wanted it disabled. That’s pretty telling.

I think – I don’t know, maybe it’s nostalgia. But the choice, losing the choice to be able to use film is going to be – it’s gone. It’s going to be gone.

Everybody around me had a Snapchat, and I said I would never get on it. I’m still on Instagram, you know? They convinced me to get Snapchat.

Technology has allowed people to make records really cheap. You can make a record on a laptop.

Our goal is not to build a platform; it’s to be cross all of them.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‚Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?‘ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.

If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be riding around on a donkey. He’d be taking a plane, he’d be using the media.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.

Computers themselves, and software yet to be developed, will revolutionize the way we learn.

I’m an inventor.

After launching the first version of Facebook for a few thousand users, we would discuss how this should be built for the world. It wasn’t even a thought that maybe it could be us. We always thought it would be someone else doing it.

I’ve got nothing against records – I’ve spent my life making them – but they are a kind of historical blip.

The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows.

Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for our fellow human beings.

In California, we have some of the strongest consumer protection laws in the country. While it is easy to conceive of innovation and regulation as mutually exclusive, California is proof that we can do both. We can innovate responsibly.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

I’m often accused of being ahead of my time, but it’s simply not true. The truth is that everybody else is behind.

Microsoft Research has a thing called the Sense Cam that, as you walk around, it’s taking photos all the time. And the software will filter and find the ones that are interesting without having to think, ‚Let’s get out the camera and get that shot.‘ You just have that, and software helps you pick what you want.

With Virgin, I’ve just loved creating things. And as a private company, I can get away with moving Virgin from records to airlines to train companies to space companies to whatever, without ever having to worry about analysts knocking the value of my stock.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.

Good ideas are free – or at least they should be.

I think every age lives in a blend of technology so there’s always older ones mixed in with newer ones, and when the new technology goes down, the immediate fallback position is either that technology just before that or one several technologies back.

We must ensure that technology is accessible, affordable, and adds value.

There’s a silly notion that failure’s not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

The reason that Apple is able to create products like the iPad is because we’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts.

Electronic books are junk.

I there represent that I sent notice of my method to Mr. Leibnitz before he sent notice of his method to me, and left him to make it appear that he had found his method before the date of my letter.

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one’s memories.

Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.

But Apple really beats to a different drummer. I used to say that Apple should be the Sony of this business, but in reality, I think Apple should be the Apple of this business.

First was the mouse. The second was the click wheel. And now, we’re going to bring multi-touch to the market. And each of these revolutionary interfaces has made possible a revolutionary product – the Mac, the iPod and now the iPhone.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

People are using Windows PCs more than they watch TV now.

I think we are at the dawn of a new era in commercial space exploration.

Japan’s very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.

There are massive efforts on the part of the internet’s corporate owners to try to direct it to become a technique of marginalisation and control.

I have already demonstrated, by crucial tests, the practicability of signaling by my system from one to any other point of the globe, no matter how remote, and I shall soon convert the disbelievers.

I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice.

I updated my grilling app, iGrill, today and it now has Facebook integration that lets you see what other people are grilling right now around the world. Awesome.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

We’ve fallen into a trap of ever-widening orbits of contact, and there is a total disregard for the present moment.

When I was born in 1920, the auto was only 20 years old. Radio didn’t exist. TV didn’t exist. I was born at just the right time to write about all of these things.

Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

No one has any faith in the tape anymore – everyone just relies on computers and considers the hardrive to be the safest option, and I don’t. I think an analog tape is something you can hold.

One thing I’ve always loved about the culture at Microsoft is there is nobody who is tougher on us, in terms of what we need to learn and do better, than the people in the company itself. You can walk down these halls, and they’ll tell you, ‚We need to do usability better, push this or that frontier.‘

The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.

I think it’s brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television – but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.

I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.

The world is not flat, and PCs are not, in the hierarchy of human needs, in the first five rungs.

I never thought, in my lifetime, that you’d be able to watch movies, read books and listen to music from a phone, but I guess the technology of tomorrow is here today.