Banking is necessary - banks are not.

I was announcing to the public, in 2006, that I'd be leaving Microsoft in a couple of years and focusing full-time on the foundation. That was the time at which we went back to New York and Warren [Buffett] announced these gifts to a number of foundations, with a very high percentage of it going to us and basically doubling our capacity.

Nigeria has moved into low-middle-income, but their north is very poor, and the health care systems there have broken down.

Microsoft looks at new ideas, they don't evaluate whether the idea will move the industry forward, they ask, 'how will it help us sell more copies of Windows?

Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing.

I mean, if we said right now, there's somebody in the next room who's dying, let's all go save their life, you know, everybody would just get up immediately and go get involved in that.

We got a malaria initiative, really a phenomenal time, even though in the early stages there was some uncertainty. Then of course [Barack] Obama, although he had budget constraints, he believed in these things; a lot of new initiatives, including in agriculture.