In Beijing, we talk about air purifiers the way that teenage boys talk about cars.

The U.S. must differentiate between controversial assertions of power, like those in the South China Sea, and fair reflections of China's growing contribution to the world, such as the new banks.

When you live in Beijing for a while, you gain a finely tuned understanding of air.

If you're going to have a book published in China, that means that you're going to be subject to in-house censorship at the publisher, and then also, of course, the government has an apparatus that is in charge of making sure that ideas that are considered disruptive or overly critical, that those don't get onto bookstore shelves.

About half my work in education is U.S. political reform around school districts and charter schools, and creating more room for entrepreneurial organizations to develop. And about half on technology, which I look at as a global platform.

I was thinking very carefully about going into education, becoming a teacher, maybe becoming a rabbi.

My kids both had Catholic junior school education, which I'm really glad for - it taught them how to be compassionate, how to be kind.

My mom is a teacher, my dad was a writer for television, his dad was a writer for television, and combining those two has been sort of the goal of my life.