Africa is on the rise.

The tool that's most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.

If you think of global public goods like polio eradication, the kind of risk-taking new approach, philanthropy really does have a role to play there, because government doesn't do R&D about new things naturally as much as it probably should, and so philanthropy's there.

Natural epidemics can be extremely large. Intentionally caused epidemics, bioterrorism, would be the largest of all.

Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft will become an unimportant company

If I hadn't given my money away, I'd have had more than anyone else on the planet.