Life is not a continuous process, there's some sort of finite number of achievements that defines your life.

It was really phenomenal [Warren Buffett donation]. It grew out of the friendship that we had and the fact that his plan to have his wife run the foundation and give things away changed when she tragically died.

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.

I remember in 1980 or 1981 looking at a list of people who had made a lot of money in the computer industry and thinking, Wow, that's amazing. But I never thought I'd be on that list. It's clear I was wrong. I'm on the list, at least temporarily.

I'm quite worried about the fiscal imbalances that we've got and what that might mean in terms of financial crisis ahead.

So not only are we saving lives now, we're creating the incentive for the breakthroughs that over the next generation will mean we can take AIDS, malaria and TB and bring those numbers dramatically down.

Don’t tax my income, tax my consumption.