You can go overboard in how quickly you might expect new technologies to transform people's lives. But I very much believe the way software is used, the way information gets distributed, will be dramatically different within 10 years. There is fire to go with all this smoke.

Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company's ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.

(In response to Java) Anybody who thinks a little 9,000-line program that's distributed free and can be cloned by anyone is going to affect anything we do at Microsoft has his head screwed on wrong.

I do normal kind of contributions, particularly for people who are going over to Africa and help highlighting global health, and that's tended to be pretty bipartisan in nature because of the coalition there exists fortunately around these global health issues. But I don't think my backing, putting a lot of money into political contributions is a way I'm going to try and help improve the world.

... No one is less happy than I am with the performance of Microsoft stock! I've lost tens of billions of dollars this year - if you check, you'll see that's more than most people make in a lifetime!

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

My innovation message, specifically including energy, happened to be the same week that on Monday and Tuesday I announced the Breakthrough Energy Venture Group. Then on that Tuesday afternoon, in December, was when I sat down with him. I explained the US has great science here, this is where the market for these things is going to be. It connects to less pollution, it connects to U.S. jobs, it connects to security, not needing the energy coming from far away.