I'm going to save my public voice largely for the issues where I have some depth.
— Bill Gates
Climate change is a terrible problem, and it absolutely needs to be solved. It deserves to be a huge priority.
Today, we're very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted - all the things you have in the house, the way industry works.
We should all grow our own food and do our own waste processing, we really should.
Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they're rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.
Certainly I'll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I've gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.
I 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.
I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.
Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.
Digital reading will completely take over. It's lightweight and it's fantastic for sharing. Over time it will take over.
I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. And I'm still fanatical, but now I'm a little less fanatical.
Who decides what's in Windows? The customers who buy it.
Now, we put out a lot of carbon dioxide every year, over 26 billion tons. For each American, it's about 20 tons. For people in poor countries, it's less than one ton. It's an average of about five tons for everyone on the planet. And, somehow, we have to make changes that will bring that down to zero.
In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone.
Until we're educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.
The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.
I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.
The only thing I understand deeply, because in my teens I was thinking about it, and every year of my life, is software. So I'll never be hands-on on anything except software.
Energy innovation is not a nationalistic game.
If you're using first-class land for biofuels, then you're competing with the growing of food. And so you're actually spiking food prices by moving energy production into agriculture.
The general idea of the rich helping the poor, I think, is important.
The AIDS is a disease that is hard to talk about.
Well private money can take risks in a way that government money often isn't willing to.
Oh, I think there are a lot of people who would be buying and selling online today that go up there and they get the information, but then when it comes time to type in their credit card they think twice because they're not sure about how that might get out and what that might mean for them.
In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there's such a high correlation in terms of educational quality and success.
Innovations that are guided by smallholder farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and environment will be necessary to ensure food security in the future.
I read a lot of obscure books and it is nice to open a book.
I have an excellent memory, a most excellent memory.
There's no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw.
We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.
I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.
If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 MPG.
If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.
People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn't they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines... There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.
Maintaining a consistent platform also helps improve product support - a significant problem in the software industry.
The trouble with energy farming is that the energy isn't always where you want to use it, and it isn't always when you want to use it.
Rich countries can afford to overpay for things.
The world has been very careful to pick very few diseases for eradication, because it is very tough.
You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it's really let us down.
I spend a lot of time reading.
In American math classes, we teach a lot of concepts poorly over many years. In the Asian systems they teach you very few concepts very well over a few years.
Although I don't have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.
I have seen firsthand that agricultural science has enormous potential to increase the yields of small farmers and lift them out of hunger and poverty.
The kids are a big part of my schedule.
Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it's true.
Almost every way we make electricity today, except for the emerging renewables and nuclear, puts out CO2. And so, what we're going to have to do at a global scale, is create a new system. And so, we need energy miracles.
This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50.
I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in.
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.
