I have drifted away from thinking about these philanthropic things. And it was only as the wealth got large enough and Melinda and I had talked about the view that wealth wasn't something that would be good to just pass to the children.

You wish that you could move more rapidly and you have setbacks. You know, the AIDS epidemic was a huge setback for Africa, and it's only through generosity that we've avoided that just completely crippling an entire generation there.

The misconception that aid falls straight into the hands of dictators largely stems from the Cold War era.

There's life and death in every email.

Investing in innovation, which was my broad theme talking to [Warren Buffett ], that included health vaccines, it included energy and education.

Eventually we'll be able to sequence the human genome and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system.

Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause - and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?