It all started back in 1977.

It all started back in 2001.

So that's how it all started.

It's actually where it all started for me.

It all sort of started as a benign mistake, like penicillin.

It all started with a crazy idea in November of 2004.

It was really great when it started to break up all of the curatorial text.

And so he started clustering it by category, and then he started using it, and then his friends started using it.

It started again!

It started raining.

And we started to wonder for a long time, how did it all get down there?

That's how all this started, but after making a sanitary pad, where can I check it?

He started demanding it.

That's where it started.

It started Earth Day.

And it all started one day on a plane, on my way to TED, seven years ago.

So, you know, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Records I guess it all started with a magazine called Student.

And we started asking them all questions.

It looks like it did before it started.

But both started exploring it.

So it started over here.

It has started raining again.

So I started thinking and listing what all it was that I thought would make a perfect biennial.

This all started when I was age five.

These are all the patients that started lithium.

I started feeling pains all over my chest.

So all of this money started pouring in, and all of this fame started pouring in, and I go, what do I do with this?

The magazines started to cover it.

Soon it started to bring results.

Well, it started back in the late 1800s when people started settling in places like Montana.

And we started exploring all kinds of other phenomena.

And then I got excited when it started getting tens of hits, and then I started getting excited when it started getting dozens and then hundreds and then thousands and then millions.

Suddenly, it started to rain very hard.

The moment my eye shifted, I immediately started to change them, so now somehow you missed where it started and where it stopped.

This all started with going to buy a door handle.

And all the developing world started to apply family planning.

All of them started price collection surveys by April 2005.

We just started mailing it to our friends.

It started getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

Several years ago, we started thinking about it.

And it just started about 14 months ago.

As I started working through it more, I started climbing out of that hole and talking with other people.

So, I started this exploration around eight years back, and it literally started with a mouse on my desk.

And I started looking at how interesting Drake's Equation was, because it spanned all these different subjects physics, chemistry, sociology, economics, astronomy.

And it all started almost a decade ago, as a young consultant at McKinsey Company at their first African office in Johannesburg.