Advancements in technology have become so commonplace that sometimes we forget to stop and think about how incredible it is that a girl on her laptop in Texas can see photos and cell phone video in real time that a young college student has posted of a rally he's at in Iran.

Generally what people tend to underestimate is the cyborg nature of Groupon. We are a company that has the DNA of being both a technology company and a heavily operational company.

New ideas in technology are literally a dime-a-dozen or cheaper than that.

In the depth of the near depression that he faced when he came in Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress provided 'recovery funds' that literally kept our classrooms open. Two years ago these funds saved nearly 20 000 teacher and education jobs - just here in North Carolina.

If you come into success too soon you'll burn out and be finished before you know it. If you let the maturation process happen naturally you'll be happier with yourself in the end.

My career started young and I was really ambitious and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis.

My father was an immigrant who literally walked across Europe to get out of Russia. He fought in World War I. He was wounded in action. My father was a great success even though he never had money. He was a very determined man a great role model.

One of the things that's beautiful about New Orleans is how culturally rich we are and how well we have worked together. People call us a gumbo. It's really important that we get focused on the very simple notion that diversity is a strength it's not a weakness.

On set is where I feel comfortable. The red carpet stuff talking about the film explaining your own life it doesn't come naturally. It's all necessary stuff I suppose but it's not my strength.

Naturally we are aware of the strength of our economy and naturally we don't want to downplay it.