The main thing that's missing in energy is an incentive to create things that are zero-CO2-emitting and that have the right scale and reliability characteristics.

Nobody has a guaranteed position in computer technologies business. We've done some good work, but all of these products become obsolete so fast and the structure of the business as it broadens out is going to be so different.

When you write a piece of software you assume a certain type of hardware. If you assume hardware that's too powerful then you can't sell many copies cause very few people have that machine. If you assume hardware that's too simple your product can't do as much.

I have to say that in 1981, making those decisions, I felt like I was providing enough freedom for 10 years. That is, a move from 64k to 640k felt like something that would last a great deal of time. Well, it didn't - it took about only 6 years before people started to see that as a real problem.

I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill.

If empathy channels our optimism, we will see the empathy and the diseases and the poor school. We will answer with our innovations and we will surprise the pessimists.

It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.