Playboy

The John Edwards tale began, like so many National Enquirer investigations, with a phone call. When the tip line rang in the paper’s Santa Monica office, reporters often raced to answer it. Rick Egusquiza grabbed it late one afternoon in fall 2007, knowing full well that nine out of 10 calls were worthless, just wackos promising the story of the decade. Egusquiza, 44, had been a Venice Beach bartender, his only writing experience reviewing porn movies for Adult Video News. But he quickly learned the Enquirer culture; his first scoop was that Angelina Jolie had gotten a Billy Bob tattoo on her arm.

PLAYBOY: Does your net worth of multi-billions, despite the fact that it’s mostly in stock and the value varies daily, boggle your mind? GATES: It’s a ridiculous number. But remember, 95 percent of it I’m just going to give away. [Smiles] Don’t tell people to write me letters. I’m saving that for when I’m in my 50s. It’s a lot to give away and it’s going to take time. PLAYBOY: Where will you donate it? GATES: To charitable things, scientific things. I don’t believe in burdening any children I might have with that. They’ll have enough. They’ll be comfortable.

I have a job to do. If I were constantly worried about death, I couldn’t function. After a while, if your life is more or less constantly in peril, you come to a point where you accept the possibility philosophically. I must face the fact, as all others in positions of leadership must do, that America today is an extremely sick nation, and that something could well happen to me at any time. I feel, though, that my cause is so right, so moral, that if I should lose my life, in some way it would aid the cause. #MLK

PLAYBOY: What is the Eighties’ dream to you, John? LENNON: Well, you make your own dream. That’s the Beatles’ story, isn’t it? That’s Yoko’s story. That’s what I’m saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It’s quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don’t expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself.

It’s a process. When you have an act that’s polished and you’re in the zone, you can’t wait to get out there. But I’m in a place where I’m backstage going, “I have fucking nothing!” I just feel like a loser. But I’ve also realized I can’t go out and keep doing the same fake racist metajokes anymore. Otherwise 30 years will go by and I’ll be the guy onstage going [imitates Andrew Dice Clay], “Hickory dickory dock!”

“We’ve done studies that prove that the mouse is faster than traditional ways of moving through data or applications. Someday we may be able to build a color screen for a reasonable price. As to overpricing, the start-up of a new product makes it more expensive than it will be later. The more we can produce, the lower the price will get.”

The real laughs always come from something very small and surprising—although another one they didn’t get in “The Jerk” is when I’m hitchhiking to St. Louis. My character’s name is Navin Johnson. A guy pulls over in his car and asks, “St. Louis?” and I go, “Uh, no, Navin Johnson.” I told the line to Carl Reiner [the movie’s writer and director] and we laughed for forty-five minutes. It’s so stupid! But in the movie, it just kind of goes away.

HETFIELD: We had our battles with spandex, that’s for sure. You could show off your package. “Wear spandex, dude. It gets you chicks!” On the first tour through America, my spandex—I fucking hate saying, “my spandex.” It’s a pretty evil phrase. They were wet from the night before, and I was drying them by the heater. A big hole melted right in the crotch. It was like, “They’re not real pants, are they? They’re like pantyhose.” I just opted to keep my jeans on, and that was the best thing that ever happened.

I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do—and I have done it—and God forgives me for it. But that doesn’t mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock.

PLAYBOY: Is your company motto really “Don’t be evil”? GOOGLE GUYS: Yes, it’s real. PLAYBOY: Is it a written code? GOOGLE GUYS: Yes. We have other rules, too. PAGE: We allow dogs, for example. PLAYBOY: Who ultimately decides what is evil? Eric Schmidt, your CEO, once said, “Evil is whatever Sergey decides is evil.” GOOGLE GUYS: That was not one of his best quotes, though it’s memorable.