Sebastian Thrun

I feel every technology can be abused, but fundamentally we put new technologies into the service of humanity.

I have a really deep belief that we create technologies to empower ourselves. We've invented a lot of technology that just makes us all faster and better, and I'm generally a big fan of this. I just want to make sure that this technology stays subservient to people. People are the number one entity there is on this planet.

The biggest invention of modern time is the book. The book is a digital medium; book text is written in a different form and replicable. What it really does is it allows us to replicate cultural information, scientific technology, and information out of the human brain.

I really believe that we have to work hard to make online education better and better, and eventually it's going to be really great. But like most of these things, it takes time to improve, to understand and to make things really good.

We humans usually feel that we are the best at everything we do, that we can safely drive ourselves. But tens of thousands of people die every year. We need to be open to having technology assist us, to find ways in which technology makes us safer.

Horizontal meetings are team or project meetings, set up to coordinate individual activities. When I worked in a large tech company, those meetings just popped up in my calendar by the dozen.

Technology is synonymous for connection with other people.

Obviously, a lot of non-profits live on donations, and that's a wonderful thing. But higher education can't exist on donations only because, if that were the case, we would have a hard time paying teachers adequate salaries.

There's a lot to be learned about how digital media, the ability to reach anybody any time, really transforms the peer interaction experience in education at large.

Do you know that driving accidents are the number one cause of death for young people?

To me, mathematics, computer science, and the arts are insanely related. They're all creative expressions.

Mercedes does beautiful work, absolutely.