As a teenager, I had been growing away from the beliefs of the church, but one of the main things that caused me to question Christian Science was that the year that I left home to go to college, a boy who I knew in my Sunday School, whose name was Michael Schram, who was 12 years old, died at home of a ruptured appendix.

I was afraid to admit feeling ill because even when I was 4 or 5, I knew that my father viewed sickness as a sign of weakness, of sin, of disobedience.

My father was a particularly zealous Christian Scientist, but young Christian Science children, who have little choice but to believe what their parents are telling them, are taught that illness originates in errors in their parents' and, eventually, their own thinking.

Christian Science is often inherited, and like many inheritances, it comes with family secrets. The religion encourages secrecy. Members of the Church tend to hide their illnesses from one another, even within families. My father has never once, in my presence, admitted to feeling ill.

I want to venture out into music education for kids. As a child, I was discouraged by a lack of money, and now I want to use my platform to give back to kids without resources.

Like most plutocrats, I, too, am a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, cofounded or funded over 30 companies across a range of industries. I was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com. I cofounded a company called aQuantive that we sold to Microsoft for 6.4 billion dollars. My friends and I, we own a bank.

Family responsibility, yes, and always. Family bankruptcy due to the cruel rules of government, no.

I always say that if you stay with a good coach, the relationship between him and his team becomes like a family: he becomes a father with his children.