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" Words can hurt you. In the larger world, it frames how people think about you, and it can hurt you in lots of little, subtle ways. "

Nathan Myhrvold

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" Age can be wonderful for red wine, but not for spacecraft. "

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" Ultimately, my Ph.D. is in mathematical physics, focusing on quantum field theory and curved space-time, and I worked with Stephen Hawking. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" The reason societies with democratic governments are better places to live in than their alternatives isn't because of some goodness intrinsic to democracy, but because its hopeless inefficiency helps blunt the basic potential for evil. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Suppose that every prospective parent in the world stopped having children naturally, and instead produced clones of themselves. What would the world be like in another 20 or 30 years? The answer is: much like today. Cloning would only copy the genetic aspects of people who are already here. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Wine lovers have known for centuries that decanting wine before serving it often improves its flavor. Whatever the dominant process, the traditional decanter is a rather pathetic tool to accomplish it. A few years ago, I found I could get much better results by using an ordinary kitchen blender. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Efficiency in government is a more elusive concept than efficiency in the private economy, which may be measured relatively easily as output per units of input. What is the government's 'output?' "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Life has not been boring for me. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Near Marseilles in the south of France, bouillabaisse is a cult food. In Toulouse and Carcassonne, the bean-based stew cassoulet is a cult food. Spain has paella and a number of others. Italy has so many, its cuisine is practically defined by them. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" One of the things that I love to do is travel around the world and look at archaeological sites. Because archaeology gives us an opportunity to study past civilizations, and see where they succeeded and where they failed. Use science to, you know, work backwards and say, 'Well, really, what were they thinking?' "

Nathan Myhrvold

" If you talk about sous-vide, then you have to talk about food safety, and microbiology, and heat. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Risk is the sort of word that is easy to discuss upfront but tough to handle when it comes time to pay the piper. There will always be some who wimp out and second-guess when the pain hits, but that is a childish reaction. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" It's really hard to compete with Apple on pure coolness, and if you do, you're probably going to use some of the things they pioneered. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Don't let the secret recipe die with the inventor. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" In market research I did at Microsoft Corp. in the early 1990s, I estimated that the 'Wall Street Journal' took in about 75 cents per copy from subscribers, $1.25 at the newsstand and a whopping $5 per copy from ads. The ad revenue let them run a far bigger newsroom than subscribers were paying for. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" The idea behind a dish - the delight and the surprise - makes a difference. Great literature surprises and delights, and provokes us. It isn't just 'Here's the facts - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.' It's how you tell it. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" The techniques of being an Internet visionary are just like those of lower-tech fortunetellers through the ages. A technological visionary must tell people what they want to hear, because your company's stock won't rise if you spout an unpopular vision to analysts. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Our reactor actually burns nuclear waste as fuel. So not only is it safe and powerful, it solves an important issue: It actually reduces nuclear waste instead of creating. It's the reactor of your dreams. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Being a visionary is a new profession, but it is really just a variant on fortunetelling, which may be the world's oldest. And its marketing appeal is similar - people will pay for reassurance about the unknown. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" It's very hard for individual inventors to get paid. For the same reason that private equity is valuable - broadly, that's a good thing - in the case of patents, many that own them aren't in a good position to take the next step. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" In the early days of the software industry, people cared about copyright and didn't give a damn about patents - they copied each other willy-nilly. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" The depressing thing about battery technology is that it gets better, but it gets better slowly. There are a whole bunch of problems in materials science and chemistry that come in trying to make existing batteries better. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Records were replaced by CDs, and lead type died in favor of computerized fonts. However, each had a 100-year ride of popularity, so you can't feel too bad for them. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Politicians don't like to face unpleasant realities. In truth, nobody does, but as individuals, we have no choice; if we neglect to plan ahead, we are held accountable. Fail to meet your responsibilities at work, and you get fired. Ignore your car's gas gauge, and you get stranded. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" One of the ugly secrets of the renewable-energy industry is that its products make no economic sense unless they are highly subsidized. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" I'm one of the first invention capitalists. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Software-industry battles are fought by highly paid and out-of-shape nerds furiously pounding computer keyboards while they guzzle diet Coke. The stakes aren't very dramatic. Life? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? Nope, it's about stock options. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" The cloning procedure is similar to IVF. The only difference is that the DNA of sperm and egg would be replaced by DNA from an adult cell. What law or principle - secular, humanist, or religious - says that one combination of genetic material in a flask is OK, but another is not? "

Nathan Myhrvold

" Cooking is an art, but all art requires knowing something about the techniques and materials. Using modernist techniques, you get more control, and that allows you to be more artistic, not less! "

Nathan Myhrvold

" People who grow up in a region doubtless have a better cultural awareness of their own cuisine, but it's also true that a lot of locals go to McDonald's, Applebee's and the like. "

Nathan Myhrvold

" It is better to predict dramatic things that don't happen than boring things that do. "

Nathan Myhrvold