I considered law and math. My Dad was a lawyer. I think though I would have ended up in physics if I didn't end up in computer science.

There's a true schizophrenia where if you say to voters, you know, do you think the federal government spends too much money and they should spend less, they say yeah, absolutely. Then you name specific things, like Pell grants for students and they say, no, not that. How 'bout NIH, medical research funding? Nah, you really shouldn't cut that. And pretty soon you've proved that what the American public is against is arithmetic.

There's only one trick in software, and that is using a piece of software that's already been written.

Microsoft has had many, many successful products. I'm committed to one company. This is the industry I've decided to work in.

Software is definitely engineering. It's different in that we take on novel tasks every time. It's not like building a certain bridge that is virtually identical to some previous bridge or some previous building.

I love nuclear. It does this radiation thing that's tricky. But they're good solutions. You know, it was interesting; recently, in Connecticut this natural gas plant blew up 11 guys. It just blew them up.

Anything you do, you better enjoy it for its value. Because people are going to second-guess everything you do.