The leader needs to create an environment in which people can analyze the situation and develop a good response.

In most of these things our foundation is a co-funder, so I can say that a polio or an HIV vaccine, that I'm putting our resources behind it in a very big way and the U.S. government would be the best partner for those efforts.

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?

We will never make a 32-bit operating system.

You wish that you could move more rapidly and you have setbacks. You know, the AIDS epidemic was a huge setback for Africa, and it's only through generosity that we've avoided that just completely crippling an entire generation there.

I know there's a farmer out there somewhere who never wants a PC and that's fine with me.

There is this thing called the GPL (Gnu Public Licence), which we disagree with... nobody can ever improve the software.