The common thread for everything I do is this idea of a Web-services architecture. What does that mean? It means taking components of software and systems and having them be self-describing, so that you can aim them, ask them what their capabilities are, and communicate with them using a standard protocol.

The 'Billionaire' song is what my kids tease me with. They sing it to me. It's funny.

As we get robots becoming more sophisticated, I think we should worry sooner rather than later on how much they could take over, but I think it'll mostly be a positive thing. In terms of deadlines it won't be any worse than nuclear weapons.

Our leadership [in Microsoft ] has that - "hey, we are the best in certain ways," and so we get the best people. That any kind of positive dynamic is quite good, so I love what's going on there, it's fun.

It is hard to overstate how valuable it is to have all the incredible tools that are used for human disease to study plants.

Patience is a key element of success.

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