I like to watch Netflix on double-speed. My wife says it ruins movies, but I love being able to watch twice as many movies in the same amount of time. And sometimes it doesn’t even feel rushed. I recently watched “Manchester by the Sea” on double-speed. I kind of wanted triple-speed for that one. I can’t imagine watching that in normal time.

The great singer Um Kulthum (actually named Kawkab Elsharq – a superstar of the East) had a major influence on my appreciation of music. On the first Thursday of each month we listened to Um Kulthum's concert – "waslats" (three songs) – for more than three hours. During all of my study years in Egypt, the music of this unique figure gave me a special happiness, and her voice was often in the background while I was studying mathematics, chemistry… etc. After three decades I still have the same feeling and passion for her music.

We spent some time in our family talking about what's the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table.

The two things that I miss most when living out of Australia are the bush and the Pacific coast, especially fishing in the surf at night! My father had a workshop and I learned to be a carpenter, a skill that has resulted in the manufacture of some very substantial coffee tables and a fair amount of time working on houses.

I’ve never been this close with anyone, or spent this much time with any other person in my life. We talk talk talk so openly about everything, and do everything together. He’s definitely the love of my life.

there was a year and a half after I sold my company where I felt adrift. I had a vague desire to slough off all responsibility. I had all the money now, so I had total freedom. Sold the company, I had nothing I had to do. I had nowhere I had to be.

It would be nice if my books were valued greatly, even after my death.

If you are a total atheist and believe in nothing, and you believe that when you die, there's no whatever spiritual realm that you just plop into the earth, well, then your personality is what lives on through recordings like this, through your writing and so that is your personality living after you have physically died. That is my favorite definition of the afterlife.

I disagree with the question.…I think too many people think that way. They think that getting something is going to improve their life. I challenge anybody who thinks that way, which almost everybody does, to try to flip it on yourself and look around you and think, “What things could I get rid of around me here that would positively influence my life?”

Whatever scares you, go do it.