Even when things are stable, that's not easy [to work in Africa] because there are not roads, and the weather is tough, the education system hasn't been there. But this is how you get great countries, is step by step.

The Center for Disease Control started out as the malaria war control board based in Atlanta. Partly because the head of Coke had some people out to his plantation and they got infected with malaria, and partly cause all the military recruits were coming down and having a higher fatality rate from malaria while training than in the field.

The mainstream is always under attack.

Microsoft's only factory asset is the human imagination.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

Take agriculture, where we haven't done much, or sanitation; saying, "okay, we will be able to make a really huge effort there." It really energized the foundation and half of what we've gotten done in this last decade is because Warren [Buffett] trusted us.

Today, we're very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted - all the things you have in the house, the way industry works.