Sebastian Thrun

“I learned to basically pull my own weight, just do my own thing. I spent a lot of time alone and I loved it. It was actually really great because to the present day I love spending time alone. I go bicycling alone, go climbing alone and I just love being with myself and observing myself and learning something.”

“I care about education for everyone, not just the elite.”

“I find it amazingly easy to take something, if you really believe in it, and turn it to reality.”

“I feel like everyone has this competitive instinct.”

“As a college student, what really interested me was the human brain and human intelligence.”

“I used to tell my graduate students at Stanford, 'Don't worry about what job you have to pick because your job picks you. Let your job pick you. Find something you are passionate about. Then when you are passionate, be persistent. Just keep doing it for a while because progress is always hard work. It never rests in ideas.'”

“The teachers I know are extremely dedicated people.”

“There are few moments in my life where I really remember what I was doing.”

“Obviously, a lot of non-profits live on donations, and that's a wonderful thing. But higher education can't exist on donations only because, if that were the case, we would have a hard time paying teachers adequate salaries.”

“There's a lot to be learned about how digital media, the ability to reach anybody any time, really transforms the peer interaction experience in education at large.”

“Many students learn best by doing. But because classrooms force the same pace on all students, they limit the degree to which students can truly learn through trial and error. Instead, lectures still force many students to follow material passively and in lockstep pace.”

“I have learned, if you give a team a budget, then the team tries to maximise the budget so that they get the same next year.”

“Honestly, the average American spends about 52 minutes a day in commute traffic. And as much as I love driving my car and many people like driving their car, commuting has never been fun for me.”

“In my son's kindergarten, they're telling us how to get him into Stanford. By their advice, I'm doing everything wrong, because I'm trying to make him happy rather than putting him through as many piano lessons as possible.”

“I don't think we will put higher-ed out of business. I think we'll evolve it. More access, higher quality, lower costs, more global reach.”

“I'd aspired to give people a profound education - to teach them something substantial. But the data was at odds with this idea.”

“Most rules that you think are written in stone are just societal. You can change the game and really reach for the stars and make the world a better place.”

“There are a lot of old-fashioned things we perpetuate that come from a world that's not digital, not interactive, and not online, and we try to retain it.”

“Top notch Indian employers such as Flipkart have hired Udacity Nanodegree graduates based solely on their performance in our programme, without any in-person interview.”

“Can we text twice as much while driving, without the guilt? Yes, we can, if only cars will drive themselves.”