A student emailed me "how do you build the future?" My response:

1/ Choose an important problem worth solving. Many large, unsolved problems are hiding in plain sight. We are so used to them we are blinded. Slow air travel. Jammed highways. Unaffordable health care.

2/ Invest your passion in the problem, not any particular idea of how to solve it; your first idea might not be right.

3/ Think 10-15 years out. Big change can't be achieved quickly—but deep transformation can happen in a decade.

4/ Have high standards. Be willing to be wrong—the best way to be right a lot is to change your mind quickly when new information arrives.

5/ Assume greatness is possible and that—if you work hard enough—you can achieve it. Form your vision of the future and then work backwards to understand how to realize it.

6/ Don't care at all when people call you crazy. Pessimists sound smart but optimists build the future.