Microsoft is a company that manages imagination.

Contrary to Piketty’s rentier hypothesis, I don’t see anyone on the [Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans] whose ancestors bought a great parcel of land in 1780 and have been accumulating family wealth by collecting rents ever since. In America, that old money is long gone - through instability, inflation, taxes, philanthropy, and spending.

This antitrust thing will blow over.

The machines need to get faster. They need to get cheaper.

With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to gain market share in what has been dominated by the iPad-type device. But a lot of those users are frustrated. They can't type. They can't create documents.

We need to cooperate globally on epidemic preparedness and prevention in the same way we are cooperating globally to stop people from getting nuclear weapons.

I have always loved the competitive forces in this business. You know I certainly have meetings where I spur people on by saying, "Hey, we can do better than this. How come we are not out ahead on that?" Thats what keeps my job one of the most interesting in the world.