Taking a look back, one big reqret is, I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world. The appalling disparities of health and wealth and opportunity that condemned millions of people to the lives of despair. I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas and economics, and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences. But humanities greatest advances are not in its discoveries, but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.

But the improvements will happen faster and last longer if we can channel market forces, including innovation that's tailored to the needs of the poorest, to complement what governments and nonprofits do. We need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way than we do today.

Microsoft is not about greed. It's about innovation and fairness.

There were a lot of missteps in the early days, but because we got in early we got to make more mistakes than other people.

I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. But many others were also in the same place. The difference was that I took action.

This is a very exciting time in the world of information. It`s not just that the personal computer has come along as a great tool. The whole pace of business is moving faster. Globalization is forcing companies to do things in new ways.

People cannot become truly knowledgeable without being excellent readers.