Bill Gates

“Microsoft Research has a thing called the Sense Cam that, as you walk around, it's taking photos all the time. And the software will filter and find the ones that are interesting without having to think, 'Let's get out the camera and get that shot.' You just have that, and software helps you pick what you want.”

“The more you learn, the more you have a framework that the knowledge fits into.”

“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.”

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.”

“Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.”

“Philanthropy, although it's tiny compared to the government, it's 2% of the US economy, which is the largest percentage, other than the Middle East.”

“We win because we hire the smartest people. We improve our products based on feedback, until they're the best. We have retreats each year where we think about where the world is heading.”

“I'm not a macroeconomics person.”

“I read a lot of obscure books and it is nice to open a book.”

“Two years from now, spam will be solved.”

“Anyway, the US, as in most issues, is the best, has the best capability to lead, and really needs to lead. It doesn't [mean] that other countries won't pick different tacks and emphasize different things. In aggregate, they're almost half of the energy R&D. Europe, China, Japan - it's very important that they come along and contribute to these things.”

“Bridge is the king of all card games.”

“When you have a fortune that is almost hard to imagine, the best thing is not to pass that on to one's children. That distorts their life situation.”

“Software is more important than hardware.”

“The truth of Moore's law has made remarkable things possible. On the software side, I think natural user interfaces in all their forms are equally significant.”

“Fortunately for India, it has got a growing economy. If it is doing the right things with taxation and focusing on the right areas for human development, it is going to have no problem, over a period of time, taking care of its own needs.”

“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.”

“Sometimes, I think my most important job as a CEO is to listen for bad news. If you don't act on it, your people will eventually stop bringing bad news to your attention and that is the beginning of the end.”

“Bangladesh is largely a river delta, and the rising sea level means that when storms come in, the human sanitation is backing up, the ability to farm.”

“Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren't so irritating.”

“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.”

“A bad strategy will fail no matter how good your information is. And lame execution will stymie a good strategy. If you do enough things poorly, you'll go out of business.”

“I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.”

“The US in some ways has been the best. Who figured out shale gas? Although that wasn't a good thing [for CO2 levels], it was very innovative. It's led to low-cost energy. Who figured out nuclear power? Largely the United States. Once you get past the steam engine, which is mostly British, then the US has been at the center of most of the energy things that have happened.”

“Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point.”

“Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority.”

“Microsoft is always two years away from failure.”

“My grade point average went from a 2.2 to a 4.0 over the summer. I wanted to get straight A's. I decided to get straight A's. I didn't want people to think I was dumb. And when you get straight A's once, its easier.”

“Technology must be implemented as part of a thoughtful, holistic approach to education transformation that includes teacher training, relevant curricula, parental involvement, and programs for children that fill unmet needs for basics like nutrition and health care.”

“(Talking about his first computer) Like all kids we not only fooled around with our toys, we changed them. If you've ever watched a child with a cardboard carton and a box of crayons create a spaceship with cool control panels, or listened to their improvised rules, such as "Red cars can jump all others," then you know that this impulse to make a toy do more is at the heart of innovative childhood play. It is also the essence of creativity.”

“Whenever you have war, you often have more deaths because the medical system and the food system breaks down, than you have directly through violence.”

“With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to gain market share in what has been dominated by the iPad-type device. But a lot of those users are frustrated. They can't type. They can't create documents.”

“Most poor people live in the poorest countries.”

“At every juncture, advanced tools have been the key to a new wave of applications, and each wave of applications has been key to driving computing to the next level.”

“Let's face it, the average computer user has the brain of a Spider Monkey.”

“The human body is the most complex system ever created. The more we learn about it, the more appreciation we have about what a rich system it is.”

“Patience is a key element of success.”

“Once you embrace unpleasant news, not as a negative but as evidence of a need for change, you aren't defeated by it. You're learning from it.”

“If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.”

“Everyone needs a coach. It doesn't matter whether you're a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.”

“Don't wallow in failure. Instead, learn from it.”

“There were a lot of missteps in the early days, but because we got in early we got to make more mistakes than other people.”

“The vision is really about empowering workers giving them all the information about what’s going on so they can do a lot more than they’ve done in the past.”

“I get more spam than anyone I know.”

“If you're smart, you often want a feedback loop so you know if what you've done is... is right.”

“The market does not drive the scientists, the communicators, the thinkers, the government to do the right things.”

“Success is a miserable teacher. It tempts intelligent people to believe they cannot lose. And it is an unreliable guide to the future.”

“If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn't be available and would be very expensive. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances, and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers.”

“If 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.”

“The Center for Disease Control started out as the malaria war control board based in Atlanta. Partly because the head of Coke had some people out to his plantation, and they got infected with malaria, and partly 'cause all the military recruits were coming down and having a higher fatality rate from malaria while training than in the field.”