My “act first” process is not foolproof. It can result in mistakes. In other areas of my business, we’ve changed policies that drew criticism from our customers, launched services too early, and pursued acquisitions that failed to close. But I consider these necessary risks, taken in the pursuit of innovation. In business, there will always be ideas that fail and projects that disappoint. But we learn these things by acting.

I tried for a Ph.D. scholarship to work with Cedric Mims, but was told to apply again later because he already had a "scholar" and would take only one student at a time. … The following week a job in the Department of Experimental Pathology at the Moredun was advertized in Nature. We sailed for Britain in early 1967, on a very slow and cheap ship.

But in 2007, the music stopped. We had lost sight of our shared purpose and our guiding principles, in which growth and success began to cover up mistakes and a disease set into Starbucks. That disease, hubris. We lost our way and believe it or not, we almost lost the entire company.

Yeah. It’s a grandiose reaction. You are claiming you could really control this, but you failed.

To never, never, never give up.

I spent years trying to work out the secret of acting. I read all the books by the great teachers and got nowhere. They were so busy making it sound complex. I just couldn’t figure it out. Then one day my acting coach in LA told me to ‘think before you act’. It was so simple – when you are acting don’t just speak the words, but concentrate and think about what you are going to say all the time. It worked for me.

"I'd rather keep quiet and have people think I am stupid than open it and prove I am." I was selling cars to pay my way through university. The company car buyer said that to me.

Losing one of my children.

As a kid I used to fantasize about being Clayton Moore, the masked hero in The Lone Ranger. I’m much too old to play him now – I’d have to be the baddie who he kills – although I do have a horse as King Arthur, well someone clopping along behind me with a pair of coconuts.

Retiring from playing rugby.