DShand

Hi Walter, Silicon Valley gets a lot of criticism for creating "useless" things like social chat apps. I think there are also a lot of really innovative companies coming out of the valley, but we haven't seen the same level of innovation in medicine, energy, etc. as we have seen in computing.

Do you think there is starting to be more of a trend towards applying this model of innovation to the hard problems that make an impact in our lives? And do you think this might take place in the valley, or someplace else?

That reminds me of Elon Musk (in regards to your other comment calling him the modern-day Ben Franklin). A lot of the great thinkers of our time approach problems from a first-principles approach, really looking at why we do things a certain way and challenge assumptions to find unique solutions. That's the kind of thinking that brought us Tesla and SpaceX.

You've written about a lot of "great" people – that is, people who have accomplished amazing things with their lives, even in vastly different fields. I'm wondering if you see any commonalities between them. Do they share any habits or characteristics that make them great? Is there a common thread that allowed Jobs, Ben Franklin, and Einstein to accomplish so much?

I hope he answers both of these questions.