I had a desire to prove to myself that I was actually in control - that I wasn't a puppet.

You actually don't want people thinking your product is cool, because then you're a fad.

It is possible to be a puppet on a string, controlled by hidden forces.

The crowd got on me. That got me going. I wanted to prove I'm a better player than that.

There came a time when these two incompatible notions of who I was, well, something had to give. Either that 'something' is where you acquiesce to the world around you and you conform, or you sort of defiantly break whatever remaining bonds connect you to that world and create for yourself a different set of values.

My interactions with Sorkin were agonisingly weird. He is by far the weirdest person I have ever met. I had dinner with him and a few hours before I got an e-mail from his assistant saying, 'Sean, this does not need to be a long conversation. Aaron is only going to use it to win your trust.'