If you believe that all men are created equal, then a child's death in some other country is no less tragic than in the United States.

I'm not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I've flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

Innovation is moving at a scarily fast pace.

Solutions to all biological problems are greatly advanced by the sequencing work and the new tools that are created.

Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it's true.

The challenge here is to design a system where market incentives, including profits and recognition, drive those principles to do more for the poor. I like to call this idea creative capitalism, an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities.

Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.