Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft will become an unimportant company

As I look forward, I'm very optimistic about the things I see ahead.

Another trick in software is to avoid rewriting the software by using a piece that's already been written, so called component approach which the latest term for this in the most advanced form is what's called Object Oriented Programming.

We need to get a broader awareness. People say climate change is really bad, but painting that picture of what you're putting at risk.

In the philanthropy game, you're going for different outcomes: saving childhood lives, having kids grow up - because they don't have malnutrition or disease - that they achieve their full potential. We take for Warren [Buffett] things that, because he's very intelligent about the world but doesn't get to go out in Africa and see what we see, we've taken and say to him where we stand and it's basically a very positive report that his gift has made a phenomenal difference.

In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work?

There's no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw.