An important part of leadership is being able to hold two things in your mind at once: Dealing with the reality, whatever it may be, and focus on hope for the future. Any leader helping an organization through challenges needs to be able to do both.

When I arrived in Ford, a decision was made to sell many marquee brands. This was because 85 per cent of the sales were from Ford and Lincoln brands. We were clear that for the company's strong future, we needed to focus on the Ford brands.

Nothing will ever have the impact that 9/11 had on Boeing and on the world. It just changed things overnight.

If you have to improve your fuel efficiency every year, it leads to innovation.

People's behavior will change with technology. I know very few young people who can't type out a text message on their phone with one thumb, for instance.

Sci-fi is just as much about social science as technology.

I think people should be able to have at their behest, like, four hours of music, entertainment, visual knowledge, different pathways. That's what I'm trying to do with modern technology, not just another song and another song.

The Internet has been a blessing and a curse. The curse we know: A lot of people appropriating your intellectual property without paying for it. But I think it's important to realize the blessing of the Internet, which is that everybody has a voice and you can break through, even without a record company.