>> "No, I'll make a bigger contribution in this phase of my life by being able to pick and choose, not being so manic, having time to step back, a little more time for what I'll call discernment rather than just activity."<p>The last, and most telling quote in the article, in my estimation.
I really dig the idea of what he's doing in analyzing the role of government. Regardless of where you land on the political spectrum I'd say most people, at least here in the US, would agree that the government is pretty inefficient. While obviously governments are different than companies in some very fundamental ways I'd think something like a dashboard for government would be both really cool and useful. Despite being a democracy we're not very transparent. There has to be so many ways we can aggregate data in a useful manner both for public use and information and to help officials make better more representative decisions. As an aside I'd also love to see more people pursuing politics with a tech background.
On Twitter:<p>> I look at that and say, "Hey, that's an exciting thing to get behind!" Because they can improve that product.<p>I'm starting to wonder how they could improve the product. People that don't use it, seem to think it should be Facebook Jr. People that do use it generally are happy with it the way it is.<p>I'm in the latter group and have a hard time thinking of ways that it can be greatly improved. If it were up to me, I'd go the platform route and re-open the API and commit to keeping it open.<p>How has Twitter improved over the past, say, 3 years? I wish Ballmer had said more about it.