Martin Luther would be the headliner of any 'dead-or-alive dinner party' I would ever throw. He is, quite simply, one of the most fascinating brains and compelling personalities in history.
I never wanted to be a public intellectual or a talking head.
Juan Williams is a very sharp guy.
David Frum, every now and again, comes up with something pretty darn brilliant.
One of my biggest intellectual influences in my life was Alex Karp of Palantir.
No nation has produced anything like his equal. There is no quality in the human mind, there is no class of topics, there is no region of thought, in which he has not soared or descended, and none in which he has not said the commanding word.
I don't really consider myself a teacher. I think - like, I have opinions like everyone else, and I just share my opinions.
I want people to think of me as a 'Mindset' guy, a journalist, a commentator, a social media personality, a filmmaker, an author, but I got to - I have to pivot so far away from anything pro-Trump, I just got to keep going that way.
[James Mattis] is a student of history. He's a strategic thinker.
I consider myself an inventor, entrepreneur, and author.
I have tremendous respect for Bill Gurley. He's a friend of mine. I look up to him.
I like John Kerry. I think he's intellectually curious and very thoughtful. I think he's deeply committed on issues like the environment. I think he's an internationalist, which I am.
Ordinary people like you and me can achieve very little on their own. We need to build support. Even if you are a thought leader and have some good ideas on how to make the world better, and even if you write five or ten books - that won't have much effect unless you have people who are willing to support your ideas.
Joe Biden is that special combination of someone who is very talented and influential, but when he starts speaking, there's inevitably going to be headlines written about something he said.
If you are identified with certain opinions and an ability to express them, and if you can build yourself an audience, a partisan fan base - measured through social media - then you are an official opinionator, monetizable through books, television contracts and the speaking circuit.
The intellectual is an individual with a specific public role in society that cannot be reduced simply to . . a faceless professional.
I guess I understand a public intellectual to be somebody who moves public discourse forward: someone who either says something new or says something that everybody knows to be true but is afraid to express.
I want people to see me as the entrepreneur, the boss, the public figure, the person who motivates.
Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. But those of us who are not that tall have to choose!
The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.
