The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

Any idea that turns out to be truly great can be harvested for tens of years. On the other hand, if you want to continue to be great, you've got to bet on new things, big, bold bets.

Our mail product, Hotmail, is the market leader globally.

Almost three years ago, when I retired, my wife and I were talking about our philanthropic work and how does one help give opportunity, particularly to kids growing up in very disadvantaged situations.And my initial kind of sense was, the government does that primarily, and what we should mostly do is pay our taxes. My wife said, no, I don't think that's quite right for us. We need to do more. We can do better.

There is such an overvaluation of technology stocks that it is absurd. I would include our stock in that category. It is bad for the long-term worth of the economy.

No. 1 thing is that life is just not as interrupt-driven as when you're running a company.

Computer science is the operating system for all innovation.