Everyone agrees that the failure of our high schools is tragic. It's bad business, and it's bad policy. But we act as if it can't be helped. It can be helped. We designed these high schools; we can redesign them.

If you don't have an effective teacher in front of the classroom, you won't change the trajectory for students.

I learn in a different way. I learn experientially.

[Bill Gates] wanted me to stay working at Microsoft, but I didn't think he could be CEO and we could have the family life that we both had growing up, which is what we envisioned. I knew I would go back to work at some point later to some profession. I just didn't know what.

Any social or cultural change has to be made openly and with people agreeing. You don't get there by just pushing an outsider's point of view.

I'm constantly saying to myself, 'I'm lucky I was born in the United States.

My undergraduate work was in computer science and economics. It just happened to be at that time when 34 percent of computer-science majors were women. We didn't realize it was at the peak at the time.