All Quotes

"When you see great leadership in action, then it’s apparent. And it’s similarly self-evident when leadership is lacking, or worse, missing in action."

"There’s no shortcut or silver bullet to being an inspirational leader. The only way to do it is to lead by example and in accordance with your values — ultimately you must walk the talk."

"It’s easier to inspire once you have a track record because people can just look at your CV and understand the experience and credibility you are bringing to the role. It is much harder for people coming in to a large leadership role for the first time."

"“A simpler, more transparent tax code will substantially reduce the estimated 6.1 billion hours and $168 billion that taxpayers spend on return preparation.”"

"“Throughout my life I have been told, ‘You can’t do things that way, or you have to do things this way.’ That makes me nuts.”"

"“All too often the IRS takes an enforcement‑oriented approach to administering the EITC, leading to relatively high audit rates for low income taxpayers. This approach can deter or altogether block eligible taxpayers from claiming the credit, prevent ineligible taxpayers from understanding what they did wrong, and squander opportunities to educate taxpayers to encourage future voluntary tax compliance.”"

"“Tax code complexity strains the IRS’ ability to serve taxpayers, while a simpler code would make the job of the tax administrator much easier — something that would benefit taxpayers and the government alike.”"

"It was shocking at first, we also had a huge drop in our revenues at the beginning which has since picked up very nicely. It’s hard to remember now, but there were a lot of uncertainties back in the spring of last year. We didn’t know how long it would last, how deep we would fall.”."

"leadership is a team play”, and it is crucial to build trust, focus on how people perform together, and empower them with confidence and autonomy."

"we decided and declared that we would not put anybody on temporary or permanent leave despite the fact that we lost revenue in the beginning. This made employees realize that we really wanted to be in this together.”"

"In a complex world with a lot of uncertainty, leaders have to embrace what seems to be opposing traits to succeed. On one hand, they have to act like heroes, exuding confidence, while on the other hand, they have to be humble, be able to take advice, and change course. In sum, they have to be humble heroes"

"“I committed to making sure that we all stayed connected. We didn’t know exactly what this was going to look like but we’re going to work together to figure it out … When you voice that there’s uncertainty but that we’re going to work together to solve something, that’s honest, and it’s authentic, and it’s real, right? Nobody has all the answers to what we’re going through.”"

"“We are very confident we are going to win this thing … This is going to be a close race, we have known it the entire fall … and what we are seeing from turnout … enthusiasm growing is exactly where we want to be …”"

"“The president’s in this race … We believe … we are built for the close election that we are in, and we see the path forward.”"

"“I think back and think we should have signaled more of our strategy early on about podcasts and who we were [trying to] reach … But being up against a narrative that we weren’t doing anything or we were afraid to have interviews, is completely bulls‑‑‑.”"

"“I have rape‑colored skin. My light‑brown‑blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South.”"

"“If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then my body is a monument. My skin is a monument.”"

"“The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from. Who dares to tell me to celebrate them?”"

"The local government level because it is the level that is closest to the people where their influence will be most felt."

"AI is a tool. The choice about how it gets deployed is ours."

"Our highways and our roads are underutilized because of the allowances we have to make for human drivers."

"A calculator is a tool for humans to do math more quickly and accurately than they could ever do by hand; similarly, AI computers are tools for us to perform tasks too difficult or expensive for us to do on our own, such as analyzing large data sets or keeping up to date on medical research."

"It's much more likely that an asteroid will strike the Earth and annihilate life as we know it than AI will turn evil."

"Deep learning is a subfield of machine learning, which is a vibrant research area in artificial intelligence, or AI."

"Sooner or later, the U.S. will face mounting job losses due to advances in automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics."

"Understanding of natural language is what sometimes is called 'AI complete,' meaning if you can really do that, you can probably solve artificial intelligence."

"I became interested in AI in high school because I read 'Goedel, Escher, Bach,' a book by Douglas Hofstader. He showed how all their work in some ways fit together, and he talked about artificial intelligence. I thought 'Wow, this is what I want to be doing.'"

"What are we going to do as automation increases, as computers get more sophisticated? One thing that people say is we'll retrain people, right? We'll take coal miners and turn them into data miners. Of course, we do need to retrain people technically. We need to increase technical literacy, but that's not going to work for everybody."

"We don't want A.I. to engage in cyberbullying, stock manipulation, or terrorist threats; we don't want the F.B.I. to release A.I. systems that entrap people into committing crimes. We don't want autonomous vehicles that drive through red lights, or worse, A.I. weapons that violate international treaties."

"There are many valid concerns about AI, from its impact on jobs to its uses in autonomous weapons systems and even to the potential risk of superintelligence."

"The popular dystopian vision of AI is wrong for one simple reason: it equates intelligence with autonomy. That is, it assumes a smart computer will create its own goals and have its own will and will use its faster processing abilities and deep databases to beat humans at their own game."

"It's hard for me to speculate about what motivates somebody like Stephen Hawking or Elon Musk to talk so extensively about AI. I'd have to guess that talking about black holes gets boring after awhile - it's a slowly developing topic."

"We should let this moment define us … in our darkest hour, we see hope, we see that we have more in common than differences."

"I'm not a big fan of self-driving cars where there's no steering wheel or brake pedal. Knowing what I know about computer vision and AI, I'd be pretty uncomfortable with that. But I am a fan of a combined system - one that can brake for you if you fall asleep at the wheel, for example."

"In the past, much power and responsibility over life and death was concentrated in the hands of doctors. Now, this ethical burden is increasingly shared by the builders of AI software."

"The mechanical loom and the calculator have shown us that technology is both disruptive and filled with opportunities. But it would be hard to find a decent argument that we would have been better off without these inventions."

"To say that AI will start doing what it wants for its own purposes is like saying a calculator will start making its own calculations."

"I came to Carnegie Mellon in 1978 as a graduate student. The robotics institute started in 1979. I was here from the beginning, but I did not do robotics then."

"I am slowly trying to learn quantum mechanics. Right now I’m reading Noson Yanofsky and Mirco Mannucci’s Quantum Computing for Computer Scientists, and Manjit Kumar’s Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality. Both are excellent books."

"I take a constructivist approach to understanding. When I study something, I ask “How could I build this, or how can I build things with this?” This is opposed to, for example, “Where might I observe this in nature?” I also tend to ask right away,"

"One interesting experience I had as a computer scientist occurred when the Motion Picture Association filed a lawsuit to suppress publication of computer code for decrypting DVD movies."

"I designed a hexapod robot called the Chiara (see photo), which some students of mine have used to do really cool things. One programmed two Chiaras to play chess on a real chessboard. Another got a Chiara to walk up to an electronic keyboard and play Ode to Joy."

"This is our moment. Let us lead with purpose and build a legacy of sustainable prosperity for generations to come."

"Africa is rapidly pioneering innovative practices in the circular economy, driven by necessity and ingenuity."

"We see a surge in waste-to-value initiatives, such as recycling plastics into construction and housing materials, organic waste converting into bioenergy, and innovative agro-processing that minimises waste."

"Digital platforms are connecting informal waste pickers to formal markets, enhancing efficiency and livelihoods."

"Cities like Lagos, Nairobi, and Johannesburg are adopting smart waste management systems, incentivised by policies."

"My favourite business case, Zubnol, is based in Aba and recycles plastic waste into the most beautiful beddings."

"The Circular Economy and its innovative ecosystems not only address environmental concerns but also create jobs, foster local entrepreneurship anchored in traditional business practices."

"The continent’s entrepreneurial spirit, supported by regional collaborations and global investment, is making the circular economy an integral part of Africa’s sustainable development future."