And this is where, a couple of years before I had become CEO, I had read this book by Carol Dweck out of Stanford [University] called “Mindset,” which was more in relation to my kids. And the simple concept in that book, which I loved a lot, was it's better to be a learn-it-all even if the know-it-all has more innate capability, because the learn-it-all ultimately will do better. And I said, well, that applies to CEOs. That applies to companies made up of people. And I said: What if we introduce that as the meme to have the cultural dialogue at Microsoft?

Unfortunately, I don’t. My wife now reads fiction. I don’t have the time to read fiction. My wife reads the fiction and summarizes it to me, but I wish at one point I’ll have time again to read fiction. It is a luxury I cannot afford right now.

It was not long after Kenneth Arrow's path-breaking study of social choice, Social Choice and Individual Values, was published in New York in 1951, that my brilliant co-student Sukhamoy Chakravarty drew my attention to the book and to Arrow's stunning "impossibility theorem" (this must have been in the early months of 1952). Sukhamoy too was broadly attracted by the left, but also worried about political authoritarianism, and we discussed the implications of Arrow's demonstration that no non-dictatorial social choice mechanism may yield consistent social decisions.

Over the years, I have found a few resources for developing personal productivity that I love. My top picks include Getting Things Done by David Allen, the classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, and Learning How to Learn Barbara Oakley (I recommend the Coursera course). I'm tempted to add Tiny Habits to this list.

I used to be a late starter, but now I get up in the dark like a medieval monk, commit unmediated scribble to a notebook, and go back to bed about six, hoping to sleep for another two hours and to wake slowly and in silence. Random noise, voices in other rooms, get me off to a savage, disorderly start, but if I am left in peace to reach for a pen, I feel through my fingertips what sort of day it is.

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.

Some writers claim to extrude a book at an even rate like toothpaste from a tube, or to build a story like a wall, so many feet per day. They sit at their desk and knock off their word quota, then frisk into their leisured evening, preening themselves. This is so alien to me that it might be another trade entirely.