There's nobody getting rich writing software that I know of.

I don't think culture is something you can describe.

The software is where the magic is. If you're going to have all this power be simple enough, appealing enough and cool enough, it's going to be because the software is right.

There's life and death in every email.

Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have museums to document that.

People are building the software and so having the pieces be such that a single person understands all the tradeoffs and everything that's going on in a piece is extremely valuable. It avoids getting into an experimental mode where you're just trying things out. That never works.

The nuclear industry has this amazing record, even equipment from generations one and two. But nuclear mishaps tend to come in these big events - Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and now Fukushima - so it's more visible.