Leonardo da Vinci

If you haven't read Walter Isaacson's books on Steve Jobs, on Da Vinci, on Einstein, read them. Those guys have failed so many times.

What do you think was the most interesting discovery he made through your research?

I think his most interesting thing he did was connect the arts and the sciences And that's an inspiration for Steve Jobs who convinced me to write about Leonardo da Vinci

That's what Vitruvian man that naked guy doing the jumping jacks in the circle and square is supposed to symbolize As the connection of art and science and that's why the Mona Lisa has the most amazing smile It's because he studied optics. He studied nerves. He studied perspective and He was able to meld art and science to make the greatest painting ever

If there's one person you could have dinner with that's no longer with us, who would it be?

Leonardo

If there's one person you could have dinner with that's no longer with us, who would it be?

Leonardo da Vinci.

Because he was the person who most wanted to know everything you could know about everything that was knowable.

And it's like, whoa, tell me about it.

Starting with Leonardo da Vinci Who I wrote about He grew up in a small village He was left-handed illegitimate His father doesn't legitimate him He was gay, he was distracted And so he has demons driving him As he runs away from the village of Vinci To go to Florence

Walter Isaacson is one of America's best-known historians, whose books include best-selling biographies of Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and a contributor to the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin.

we're all sort of waiting to see, Walter Isaacson's book on Elon, which is coming in a few weeks.

Five hundred years later, Leonardo's notebooks are around to astonish and inspire us. Fifty years from now, our own notebooks, if we work up the initiative to start them, will be around to astonish and inspire our grandchildren, unlike our tweets and Facebook posts.