People are always coming up to me and saying, 'I heard your dad's speech, and it's really great.' And they'll mention some place I didn't even know my dad was going to.

Until recently, over 98 percent of teachers just got one word of feedback: Satisfactory. If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was 'satisfactory,' I would have no hope of ever getting better.

Most of our competitors were one-product wonders... They would do their one product, but never get their engineering sorted out.

Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have - whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.

Windows 2000 already contains features such as the human discipline component, where the PC can send an electric shock through the keyboard if the human does something that does not please Windows.

Being maniacal about something is very helpful.

R&D generally has been a bipartisan thing, because in the IT space, in the medical space, the U.S., the benefits to ourselves and the world and our economy have been very, very clear. I'm hopeful we can make a very strong case there. Energy is actually harder; it takes more time to get a product, but if you do it's a very, very big market and the constraints of doing that in a clean way are more obvious all the time.