The willingness to hear hard truth is vital not only for CEOs of big corporations but also for anyone who loves the truth. Sometimes the truth sounds like bad news, but it is just what we need.

It's the knowledge derived from information that gives you a competitive edge.

When I was in college, for the games of that era, I was as hard core as anyone was. I wouldn't say I outgrew it, but you always have to have a finite number of addictions.

Make sure people get educated, help out with health emergencies. Those things, the government should do. That's 96 per cent of the economy, those two sectors.

Whenever there is hard work to be done, I assign it to the laziest man as he is sure to find an easy way of doing it. Be lazy, think crazy.

If somebody is working on a new medicine, computer science helps us model those things. We have a whole group here in Seattle called the Institute for Disease Modelling that is a mix of computer science and math-type people, and the progress we're making in polio or plans for malaria or really driven by their deep insights.

Software is the magic thing whose importance only goes up over time.