Execution really shapes whether your company takes off or not.

I don't have a TV or watch movies. I don't like to be broadcast to, I want to participate.

I kept my age quiet for a good few years. I didn't see it as a positive. I worked remotely, so I just didn't tell people.

If it doesn't come through the Internet, it's not really compelling to me.

You just want to be judged against everyone fairly.

I'm very much a creative person, but you've got to do the follow-through. A lot of people start out with an exciting thing and they want to take over the world, but really the people who do take over the world have a good plan of how to get there and the steps along the way.

My dad is good at sticking with stuff and he has a strong work ethic, which is imbued in me. Growing up, he would constantly ask what I was doing and was I achieving anything.

The Internet was appealing partly because it was something I could do in bed and feel like I was achieving something. I had an operation when I was 13 and ended up with complications, so I was in and out of the hospital. The bottom line is you can get through health challenges. It's part of why I was so driven.

The talent that has to be learned is finding out what someone's passion is and setting them up to realize that. You don't get the best work from people if you're guiding them versus them guiding themselves.

Expose yourself to as much randomness as possible.

I don't want to be normal. I want to be something else.

I have a broad range of interests, so I'll always be working on something.

I really focused on three things in high school - my company, basketball and my school work.

I'm just the smallest dot in a big map of human history.

I've always loved to write, and I kept a diary of what I thought about my business, being an entrepreneur and other things of interest to me.

Long-term goals are dangerous. They limit you. They hinder you from reacting to new conditions.

Sometimes I have to pause to make the distinction between Ben the teenager and Ben the businessman.

It got a little stressful in my first two years of high school, trying to make conference calls with investors in between classes, but I definitely learned a lot of important time-management lessons.

Talk to people no one else is talking to. Who would have thought that giving a speech at a funeral at age 12 would introduce me to a man who would introduce me to my first business contact who would introduce me to several other important people in my life. That's luck. That's randomness.