Well depending on the government, you either work through the government, which is ideal, because then you're strengthening their capabilities, or you work through the non-governmental organizations. It's never easy, and you know, it's just about the very basics of health. This is not hospitals. This is just primary health care [in Africa], the most simple things, and even so, getting the supplies out, getting the trained workers there.
Bill GatesUntil we're educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.
Bill GatesYou have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.
Bill GatesComputers are great because when you're working with them you get immediate results that let you know if your program works. It's feedback you don't get from many other things.
Bill GatesPeople who say they don't see the acceleration of innovation is a wilful blindness. We are innovation at a wonderful speed for the basic things we think everyone should get.
Bill GatesThere are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it's extremely hard to block anything - extremely hard. You'll never get perfect blocking.
Bill GatesIt's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not.
Bill GatesMeasles will always show you if someone isn't doing a good job on vaccinations. Kids will start dying of measles.
Bill GatesI could name about a dozen paths, and you'd like to have a whole bunch of research on all those paths, and then, eventually, at least four to five companies with really significant financing try and get to big scale, going down and really trying to prove it out.
Bill GatesThanks to quality education, Israel is one of the most advanced countries in the world .. Israel is advancing in high-tech even more than other developed countries.
Bill GatesIf you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.
Bill GatesAny machine that can run a browser is not thin. The browser has to be the thickest application man has ever invented, and it's getting thicker faster than anything ever development by man.
Bill GatesWhenever you have war, you often have more deaths because the medical system and the food system breaks down, than you have directly through violence.
Bill GatesThe huge turnout for Live 8 here and around the world proves that thanks to the leadership from people like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the world is beginning to demand more action on global health and poverty.
Bill GatesI set a rule that people weren't allowed to send good news unless they sent around an equal amount of bad news. We had to get a balanced picture. In fact, I kind of favored just hearing about the accounts we were losing because ... bad news is generally more actionable than good news.
Bill GatesI have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.
Bill GatesNow we've got that [children's death rate] down to about 5 percent, so we've more than cut it in half, and that's because we're getting vaccines out, economic improvement also helps there, but the vaccines are why we've seen an acceleration in getting that down.
Bill GatesIf somebody is considering being willing to go out and work in the field in global health, those are a particular class of heroes because it's hard to work in those places. Our foundation gets so many of our learnings from people who've been out there and seen, "this tool is not going to work there, there's more of a problem here than you know." You should really get involved in that.
Bill GatesI believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time. As the successor to DOS, which has over 10,000,000 systems in use, it creates incredible opportunities for everyone involved with PCs.
Bill GatesThe concept of this so-called "TerraPower reactor" is that you, in the same reactor, you both burn and breed. So, instead of making plutonium and then extracting it, we take uranium - the 99.3 percent that you normally don't do anything with - we convert that, and we burn it.
Bill GatesI think the thing we see is that as people are using video games more, they tend to watch passive TV a bit less. And so using the PC for the Internet, playing video games, is starting to cut into the rather unbelievable amount of time people spend watching TV.
Bill GatesThe finest pieces of software are those where one individual has a complete sense of exactly how the program works. To have that, you have to really love the program and concentrate on keeping it simple, to an incredible degree.
Bill GatesI think when smallpox was eliminated, the whole world got pretty excited about that because it’s just such a dramatic success.
Bill GatesWe have over 60 million machines that can take the same diskette, plug it in and immediately ah, that that software's working. And so it's created the worldwide software industry that... that is so very competitive and moving so quickly.
Bill GatesThe current information revolution is a cultural revolution, a social revolution, a thoroughgoing technological revolution that involves not just information, but labor, leisure, entertainment, communication, education, culture and thus is part of a major cultural and social shift.
Bill GatesI believe that the world will be a safer place if there is enough food to go around, that it will be a more stable place if children grow up with opportunities instead of frustrations. Furthermore, I can only assume that if the United States plays a role in helping to create prosperous societies, we will have friends to call on in times of need.
Bill GatesWe believe the world changes when the boldest thinking is directed at the toughest problems
Bill GatesI have a nice office. I have a nice house... So I'm not denying myself some great things. I just don't happen to have expensive hobbies.
Bill GatesWho can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put three man-years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product, and distributing it for free?
Bill GatesIf we have optimism without empathy then it doesn't matter how much we master the secrets of science. We're not really solving problems, we're just working on puzzles.
Bill GatesIf Africa seeks prosperity, it must provide for the health and nutrition of all – including the poorest.
Bill GatesDepending on how quickly you get ocean rise, you have people who live in river deltas [at risk].
Bill GatesThink of business as a good game. Lots of competition and a minimum of rules. You keep score with money.
Bill Gates