Many companies don't exist after 25 years. It's a rarity. Or if they do exist, they're like IBM, with a totally changing personality.

My grandmother wanted my father to be a teacher because she was a teacher. He didn't go down that road until much later in life; he just kind of retired after almost 20 years as being a visiting lecturer at Stanford, where he got his graduate degree.

It's totally unrealistic. We don't know what there is out there and we don't know how it's changing.

If you want to make an impact, you need to invest your time every bit as much as your money. And you need to stay involved for the long run. If you can't look at a five-year horizon, you shouldn't get involved.

Indeed, the highest honors are those granted by organizations who understand the necessity of providing our nation's children with access to technology in an environment which fosters the type of learning that will lead us into the next century.

It's the community that helps form our moral compass. It's those attitudes that I've remembered through my entire lifetime.