- Arthur C. Clarke: I'm thinking of the incredible breakthrough which has been made possible by developments in communications, particularly the transistor and above all, the communications satellite. These things will make possible a world in which we can be in instant contact with each other, wherever we may be. It will be possible in that age, perhaps only 50 years from now, for a man to conduct his business from Tahiti or Bali just as well as he could from London. In fact, if it proves worthwhile, almost any executive skill, any administrative skill, even any physical skill, could be made independent of distance. When that time comes, the whole world will have shrunk to a point. And the traditional role of the city as a meeting place for man would have ceased to make any sense. In fact, men will no longer commute. They will communicate.
- John Woodman: Well, it's definitely the world's largest pager.
- Mike: No, it's actually the world's smallest email terminal.
- Jim: Stan, come on. You owe me. You've sold a lot of minutes because of us.
- Stan Sigman: Yeah, but you knowwhat the problem with selling minutes is?
- Jim: What?
- Stan Sigman: There's only one minute in a minute.
- Jim: Let me tell you the best advice I ever got at Harvard. You want to be great, you need to sacrifice. The more painful the sacrifice, the greater you'll be.
- Mike: So, there's a reason why your intercom is emitting white noise. It's because it was manufactured in China by engineers who didn't care, and now every office in the world has to suffer an annoying hiss, a blinking red light, fifteen different power cords that are utterly incompatible with one another. So, uh. We are not doing that. We are not just adding to the hiss. I will build a prototype, but I'll do it perfectly or I don't do it.
- Jim: Mike, are you familiar with the saying "Perfect is the enemy of good?"
- Jim: Well, "Good Enough" is the enemy of humanity.
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