Born on October 31st

"In the field of resilience & focus, we are not defined by the weight of our struggles, but by the strength we find when we rise."

"Like a lighthouse in the storm, your inner resolve must remain steady and bright. As a historical figure, this is the foundational truth I have observed."

"The hardest trials do not consume the gold; they refine the spirit and clear the path ahead."

"For any movement to gain momentum, it must start with a small action. This action becomes multiplied by the masses, and is made tangible when leadership changes course due to the weight of the movement's voice."

"What can a pencil do for all of us? Amazing things. It can write transcendent poetry, uplifting music, or life-changing equations; it can sketch the future, give life to untold beauty, and communicate the full-force of our love and aspirations."

"We have every resource necessary to provide access to education for every child on the planet; we just need to commit to enabling it."

"Made with Pencils is grounded in the creativity of a few, propelled by the financial support of many, and most importantly, it's empowering generations to come. A simple idea, a heartfelt desire, and a world of possibility. A pencil, a promise, and a dream."

"The single most powerful element of youth is our inability to know what's impossible."

"The most abundant resources that we possess amongst the 1.5 million nonprofits in the United States are passion and knowledge, yet our most scarce resource is collaboration."

"I could enjoy the life that I had by virtue of the educational attainment that my grandparents and parents had pursued. Education was always incredibly valued in our family."

"A major celebrity is a major brand, and major brands pick very critically what other brands they're going to associate with. So an A-list celebrity usually picks an A-list brand."

"When you have a celebrity who is willing to shine his personal spotlight on the non-profit and can also speak articulately about the mission, that's really the best of both worlds."

"There's nothing that can replace quality programs in a non-profit."

"We all have those things that even in the midst of stress and disarray, they energize us and give us renewed strength and purpose. These are our passions."

"When it comes to fundraising for a social enterprise, if you are pursuing your true passion, you'll learn to become great at your craft because you'll care so much about perfecting the skills necessary to make that dream a reality."

"There are many challenges in the global education ecosystem: from top-down systemic issues in how educational services are organized and delivered, to bottom-up issues of curriculum effectiveness, accountability, and human resource allocation."

"It is the local community that needs to own the commitment to education."

"I'm not a non-profit person. I think of myself as an entrepreneur who wants to work on global education."

"In the field of resilience & focus, we are not defined by the weight of our struggles, but by the strength we find when we rise."

"Like a lighthouse in the storm, your inner resolve must remain steady and bright. As a historical figure, this is the foundational truth I have observed."

"The hardest trials do not consume the gold; they refine the spirit and clear the path ahead."

"By, say, 2025-2030, I expect that there will be multiple jurisdictions that allow the tokenization of virtually any scarce resource, all the way down to personal tokens."

"We think of bitcoin as mobile. It's not one company; it's broad."

"I'm interested in businesses that take digital bits and turn them into interfaces for physical atoms. I'm also interested in drones, Bitcoin, and 3D printing."

"Conceptually, we believe that embedded mining will ultimately establish bitcoin as a fundamental system resource on par with CPU, bandwidth, hard drive space, and RAM."

"I think tokenization eventually means everyone becomes an investor once all the regulatory issues are worked out - from your computer itself to a kid in India messing around with $10."

"Tokenization applies to scarce assets. Today, the most appropriate thing to tokenize is something that's purely digital. Bitcoin and ethereum are the canonical."

"Our nation of immigrants is, tautologically, a nation of emigrants."

"Many great founders have one or more big failures on their track record. What makes them great is that they eventually succeed despite that."

"Anything scarce will ultimately be tokenized because the benefits of digitization and increased liquidity are so great."