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.

Setting clear goals and finding measures that will mark progress toward them can improve the human condition.

Eventually we'll be able to sequence the human genome and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system.

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.

I do think this next century, hopefully, will be about a more global view. Where you don't just think, 'Yes, my country is doing well,' but you think about the world at large.

Creating a piece of software is always complicated because you're doing something new. If you just wanted something that had been done before you'd just use that old piece of software. So there are no repetitive tasks.

(Talking about his first computer) Like all kids we not only fooled around with our toys, we changed them. If you've ever watched a child with a cardboard carton and a box of crayons create a spaceship with cool control panels, or listened to their improvised rules, such as "Red cars can jump all others," then you know that this impulse to make a toy do more is at the heart of innovative childhood play. It is also the essence of creativity.