Bill Gates Quotes
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We US are the biggest per person, by a substantial amount, greenhouse emitters, and we give the most foreign aid, not per person but in absolute. This is another issue where hopefully we will take a long-term approach which, even though we sometimes have a hard time doing that, it's easier for us, as a rich country with this kind of scientific depth, than it is for the poor countries who will suffer the problems.
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Windows 95 was a nice milestone.
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Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
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The most important 'speed' issue is often not technical but cultural. It's convincing everyone that the company's survival depends on everyone moving as fast as possible.
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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.
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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.
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The next big invention that will change the way we live should be things like ways of generating energy like electricity.
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Our modern lifestyle is not a political creation. Before 1700, everybody was poor as hell. Life was short and brutish. It wasn't because we didn't have good politicians; we had some really good politicians. But then we started inventing - electricity, steam engines, microprocessors, understanding genetics and medicine and things like that. Yes, stability and education are important - I'm not taking anything away from that - but innovation is the real driver of progress.
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You have to be willing to see that sometimes the governments of these poor countries don't come through. You have to think about that as a constraint. How do you help them be better? How do you come up with things that actually work, even in those tough situations.
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Teams should be able to act with the same unity of purpose and focus as a well motivated individual.
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The phenomenal generosity of the United States in its aid budget towards health issues is the best in the world. You can look at that broadly, you can look at it in terms of HIV, the PEPFAR money which came together in a Republican administration with bipartisan support.
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If your goal is to make the world a better place, one thing you can do is pick a specific challenge that you really care about. Then, learn as much as you can about it and try to volunteer your time to help an organization that is working in this area. While you're doing that, look for creative new ways to use technology to tackle parts of the problem that you come in contact with.
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Finding information is either a software question or a question of how much information is online.
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I'm truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs' death. The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it's been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.
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The nuclear industry has this amazing record, even equipment from generations one and two. But nuclear mishaps tend to come in these big events - Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and now Fukushima - so it's more visible.
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People 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.
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I don't think there is any philosophy that suggests having polio is a good thing.
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If you withdraw the incredible focus on polio, it will spread back, and in poor countries you'll get something like 100,000 cases a year. So by being very intense and getting the cases down to zero, what you do is you avoid all the future cases.
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Getting ready for a global pandemic is every bit as important as nuclear deterrence and avoiding a climate catastrophe.
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In the decade ahead I can predict that we will provide over twice the productivity improvement that we provided in the '90s.
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I think that society has to be careful not to shift all of its resources to the elderly versus the young. I get very concerned when people talk about cutting education budgets.
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Even with cameras being very cheap, one thing that researchers noticed was that you look really bad in a videoconference image because the lighting is bad and you get shadows and things.
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If we think long term, the younger generation here is better about embracing the world. Not seeing countries boundaries kind of an "us versus them" thing.
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U.K. companies are in very international and very competitive markets. If you look at PC penetration in the U.K., it is very similar to the United States market.