We're at the point now where the challenge isn't how to communicate effectively with e-mail; it's ensuring that you spend your time on the e-mail that matters most.

China and the U.S. need each other very badly. Yes, we should argue about some things, but it's not an 'us versus them,' it's an 'us and them' type scenario.

People are building the software and so having the pieces be such that a single person understands all the tradeoffs and everything that's going on in a piece is extremely valuable. It avoids getting into an experimental mode where you're just trying things out. That never works.

By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world.

If we [Microsoft Corporation] weren't still hiring great people and pushing ahead at full speed, it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company. Fear should guide you, but it should be latent. I have some latent fear. I consider failure on a regular basis.

America and Japan are the two leading world economies in terms of technology and innovative products. And in software, information-age technology and biotechnology the U.S. has an amazing lead.

Take agriculture, where we haven't done much, or sanitation; saying, "okay, we will be able to make a really huge effort there." It really energized the foundation and half of what we've gotten done in this last decade is because Warren [Buffett] trusted us.