What is the best advice you have ever received?

Then there was Von Neumann, the great mathemati-cian. We used to go for walks on Sunday. We'd walk in the canyons, and we'd often walk with Bethe, and Von Neumann, and Bacher. It was a great pleasure. And Von Neumann gave me an interesting idea; that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in.

When I first met Sergeant Jackson I had grown a mustache and had taken up the affectation of smoking cigars, because I thought this made me look, you know, quite dashing and much older than my 22 years, or what have you. And the first thing that Sergeant Jackson did after I asked him to, in essence, take the insignia off, you know, just tell me straight up what I could do to improve my performance. And he told me, he said, “Well, the first thing, shave off that ridiculous mustache, and quite smoking the cigars — because you look absurd — and be yourself.” And I don’t think I ever forgot that. I don’t think I ever tried an affectation after that point in my life.

I had lots of teachers encourage me. And I still know some of them, my high school teachers. But one of them encouraged me. She said, “Well, what do you want to do?” I said, “I want to be a doctor.” And she asked me where I wanted to go to school, and so I named all the Florida public universities which seemed within reach, financially. And she said, “Well, maybe you ought to apply to Duke, and maybe you’ll get a scholarship.” And I did both those things. I applied and got a scholarship.

I think some of the best advice I got as a young session musician — the first time I played on something — they came back and said, “Now just play me half of what you know. Okay, that was impressive, but that’s not what I need here.” So it’s really an exercise on what’s best going to serve the work in front of you, what’s the job that will do that the best.

Well, I remember Steven Spielberg was incredibly informed about lenses and technical things, and that made him very instinctive in terms of how he directed: “Do it quicker, faster, something’s not right.” He is totally spontaneous, he doesn’t try to measure his direction but it’s very true, it’s very direct and for that reason, very exciting.

Right, I went back as a mature student to art school, and I was advised to use my train journeys and commutes, or to just take time in the morning before work to sit down and write something. That was, I think, the beginnings of understanding what it meant to have a writing practice.

He says: Take your gloves off, Mellody, but use your power for good. He's giving me my hands back. Use your power for good. And I have never - I've used that analogy in all things in my life, something as simple as getting my hands back, using my powers for good in the water but also day-to-day life using your power for good no matter who you are.

Run toward the hardest problems. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what that meant.  But over time, I realized this was the best advice I ever received. Hard problems teach you what you're capable of.  Fast forward a bit … 12 years ago, I got a chance to put that lesson to the test. I had the opportunity to become CEO of AMD. AMD had enormous potential, but the company had been through some tough years. Some of my mentors thought taking the job was risky. But for me, this was my dream job. This was what I’d been training for all those years. The opportunity to work at the bleeding edge of technology on problems that really mattered. The first thing we had to figure out was what we wante