Bill Gates Quotes, Status, and Thoughts

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top - I'm afraid that's not quite right.

Microsoft has had its success by doing low-cost products and constantly improving those products and we've really redefined the IT industry to be something that's about a tool for individuals.

Think of business as a good game. Lots of competition and a minimum of rules. You keep score with money.

Why do people benefit in inverse proportion to their need? Well, market incentives make that happen.

If something's expensive to develop, and somebody's not going to get paid, it won't get developed. So you decide: Do you want software to be written, or not?

If you're too focused on your current business, it's hard to change and concentrate on innovating.

Most of our competitors were one-product wonders... They would do their one product, but never get their engineering sorted out.

Every day were saying, 'How can we keep this customer happy?' How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will.

Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved.

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.

Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn't they?

Whether it's Google or Apple or free software, we've got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.

Know your numbers' is a fundamental precept of business.

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.

It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

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

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

To succeed, you also have to know how to make choices and how to think more broadly.

I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. But many others were also in the same place. The difference was that I took action.

Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement.

It's the knowledge derived from information that gives you a competitive edge.

When you are failing, you are forced to be creative, to dig deep and think, night and day.

Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.

Don't let complexity stop you.

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 have $100 billion... You realize I could spend $3 million a day, every day, for the next 100 years? And that's if I don't make another dime.

Robotics and other combinations will make the world pretty fantastic compared with today.

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

Look At The Clock When You Are Sitting idle. But Never Look At The Clock When You Are Working.

The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

A company's ability to respond to an unplanned event, good or bad is a prime indicator of its ability to compete.

If you give people tools, and they use their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.

I would counsel people to go to college, because it's one of the best times in your life in terms of who you meet and develop a broad set of intellectual skills.

I watched the piles of feces go up the conveyor belt... They made their way through the machine... A few minutes later I took a long taste of the end result: a glass of delicious drinking water.

You can make money and you can make excuses, but you can never make money out of excuses

[Smart] is an elusive concept. There's a certain sharpness, an ability to absorb new facts. To ask an insightful question. To relate to domains that may not seem connected at first. A certain creativity that allows people to be effective.

It's hard to improve public education - that's clear.

Solutions to all biological problems are greatly advanced by the sequencing work and the new tools that are created.

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity - the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.

Every new change forces all the companies in an industry to adapt their strategies to that change.

I definitely think leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favor to them.

Creating a piece of software is always complicated because you're doing something new. If you just wanted something that had been done before you'd just use that old piece of software. So there are no repetitive tasks.

I'm invested in a lot of battery companies - and there's a lot that exists I'm not in.

We all need people who will give us feedback. That's how we improve.

Life is a lot more fun if you treat its challenges in creative ways.

Anyone who spends their life on a computer is pretty unusual.

The greatest thing you can do for your competition - hire poorly.

The world needs banking but it does not need banks.

If you are born poor its not your mistake, But if you die poor its your mistake.

The computer was born to solve problems that did not exist before.

Vision without execution is daydreaming.

There will be two types of businesses in the next 5 years, those that are on the Internet, and those that are out of business

We get Comfort from those who agree with us, but we get Growth from only those who don't agree with us !

I believe innovation is the most powerful force for change in the world.

How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.

Computers and games don't waste time - people do.

Software is the magic thing whose importance only goes up over time.

If your business is not on the Internet, then your business will be out of business.

I work hard because I love my work.

I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.

Leaders are those who empower others.

The world today has 6.8 billion people...that's headed up to about 9 billion. If we do a really great job on vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 to 15 percent.

I am not topper in my university but all toppers are working in my microsoft company.

You need to understand things in order to invent beyond them.

Often you just have to rely on your intuition.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

We're only at the beginning of what we have to do here.

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.

Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping – they called it opportunity.

I don’t know’ has become ‘I don’t know yet’.

Legacy is a stupid thing! I don’t want a legacy.

If geek means you’re willing to study things, and if you think science and engineering matter, I plead guilty. If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.

I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

If you are born poor it’s not your mistake, but if you die poor it’s your mistake.

Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe 10% to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated. I wouldn’t want that on my business card.

If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

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.

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they?

Patience is a key element of success.

The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

I am not in competition with anyone but myself. My goal is to improve myself continuously.

Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point.

A fundamental new rule for business is that the Internet changes everything.

Life is not fair, get used to it.

In my view, investing in public libraries is an investment in the nation’s future.

I studied every thing but never topped.. But today the toppers of the best universities are my employees

Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.

To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks.

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.

In business, the idea of measuring what you are doing, picking the measurements that count like customer satisfaction and performance… you thrive on that.

Who decides what’s in Windows? The customers who buy it.

I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.

I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.

The most amazing philanthropists are people who are actually making a significant sacrifice.

You see, antiquated ideas of kindness and generosity are simply bugs that must be programmed out of our world. And these cold, unfeeling machines show us the way.

There is a certain responsibility that accrued to me when I got to this unexpected position.

We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.

If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?

I do think this next century, hopefully, will be about a more global view. Where you don’t just think, ‘Yes, my country is doing well,’ but you think about the world at large.

If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.

Until we’re educating every kid in a fantastic way, until ever inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.

Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.

The general idea of the rich helping the poor, I think, is important.

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.

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

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.

Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it’s true.

I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

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.

If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 MPG.

We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.

Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

I’m a big believer that as much as possible, and there’s obviously political limitations, freedom of migration is a good thing.

Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe 10% to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated.

If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.

Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you. Find yourself.

Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

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.

It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

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

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.