In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores of the kids going in.

Software is inherently complicated. If you say to somebody I want an airline reservation system, to really say what you want in terms of overbooking and fares, and different airlines communicating with each or schedule changes, it's immensely complex. And so you can't write a program that's any simpler than that full specification.

In the next 15 years, we can halve childhood deaths. That's doable.

Change the boundaries of business.

I have always loved the competitive forces in this business. You know I certainly have meetings where I spur people on by saying, "Hey, we can do better than this. How come we are not out ahead on that?" Thats what keeps my job one of the most interesting in the world.

If your goal is to make the world a better place, one thing you can do is pick a specific challenge that you really care about. Then, learn as much as you can about it and try to volunteer your time to help an organization that is working in this area. While you're doing that, look for creative new ways to use technology to tackle parts of the problem that you come in contact with.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn't make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.