Too late, he gets the software mantra and drops the hardware, but for all the technological advantages of Next it is a moneylosing failure.
Most mornings the latest he gets up is 4am, which means that by the time we meet for breakfast the next day he has already been for a spin 2,000m up in his motorised paraglider.
If he says he's going to be late because he got stuck in a meeting at work, that means he's going to be late because he got stuck in a meeting at work.
In his late teens, he got into graffiti art and promoted club parties at the Limelight in Manhattan.
In the late '60s, he got a job working for fashion retailer John Michael, who ran a Bond Street boutique.
It was late when he got into Modesto, and he was tired.
His first training session, a couple of lads rolled out on to the training pitch late and he got us in a circle and said it was unacceptable.
He has not spoken up on the subject of late, but he got himself arrested in an anti-Rock protest six years ago, when he was a state senator.
He maintained he'd "rather prop up a bar somewhere with no one knowing who the hell I was" – and in through the late 70s he got his wish.
During the Cultural Revolution, when Li was in his late teens, he got a job as a propaganda illustrator, churning out pictures of factory workers and of farmers toiling in wheat fields.
