I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to set my life up so that I can really work on things that I think are worthwhile. And to create an organization that’s good at stimulating me, and taking ideas I have and turning them into reality. It’s great, and I’m certain I’ve been incredibly much more productive than if I’d for example stayed a professor or something.

I’ve also found that working on practical problems very often leads to me to new kinds of thinking that I don’t think would ever have occurred to me if I’d just been pursuing pure science.