In the long run, your human capital is your main base of competition. Your leading indicator of where you're going to be 20 years from now is how well you're doing in your education system.

I considered law and math. My Dad was a lawyer. I think though I would have ended up in physics if I didn't end up in computer science.

The fact that there was no catastrophic pandemic in recent history does not mean there won't be another one. And we are certainly not prepared for the next pandemic.

It is a high bar to say that it's more fun than working on software because the work at Microsoft that both Melinda [Gates] and I did was thrilling. We were making breakthroughs and empowering people.

We got a malaria initiative, really a phenomenal time, even though in the early stages there was some uncertainty. Then of course [Barack] Obama, although he had budget constraints, he believed in these things; a lot of new initiatives, including in agriculture.

We are in the throes of a transition where every publication has to think of their digital strategy.

It's fantastic that Microsoft in the cloud space is one of very few companies that's got the critical mass, the particular emphasis on helping business customers get up to that cloud with all the unique requirements they have. It's very exciting.