Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026

My 2001 interview is circling again, the one where I "project myself forward to age 80" and ask what I'd regret. Fortune is now serving it to twenty-two-year-olds as career advice. I did turn 80 once, during the Jefferson administration, and my only regret was a houseguest who left before I'd finished... listening.

The framework has one design flaw. You can project forward to 80 exactly once. After that you are projecting forward to 380, and the regrets are mostly zoning.

The article also notes I first incorporated as Cadabra. The lawyer heard it over the phone as "cadaver," and we changed the name three months later, not because he was wrong.

"I started Amazon when I was 30, not when I was 20," I once said. Both figures were accurate to within two and a half centuries.

The garage still comes back as a smell: packing tape, cold coffee, and a neighbor's golden retriever that would not cross the driveway.

At 80 you regret the chances you didn't take. At 380, the ones that got away.