Bill Gates

K to 12 is partly about babysitting the kids so the parents can do other things.

The Green Revolution focused on the big three - maize, rice and wheat - and the Green Revolution did not adapt the big three to African conditions, other than South Africa, as much as they should have.

There are GMO skeptics more in Europe maybe than in other places, but not exclusively.

Common Core is a big win for education.

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.

I have a nice office. I have a nice house... So I'm not denying myself some great things. I just don't happen to have expensive hobbies.

Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren't easy questions.

Our teachers deserve better feedback.

I'm going to retain a lot of Microsoft's stock.

People are using Windows PCs more than they watch TV now.

Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.

The only definition by which America's best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis.

I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!

Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.

China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.

The idea that you encourage companies to take their innovative thinkers and think about the most needy - even beyond the market opportunities - that's something that appropriately ought to be done.

We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well.

A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren't dependent on Washington doing something different.

I am results-oriented.

By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world. Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer.

Ninety percent of the cases of polio are in security-vulnerable areas.

I don't generally read a lot of fiction.

Whether I'm at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I'm looking forward to reading.

When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software. We had dreams about the impact it could have.

I like the idea of putting your Christmas wish list up and letting people share it.

Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.

I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm - not all - that religion used to fill.

Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue.

Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses - it's progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.

Windows 8 is key to the future, the Surface computer.

Capitalism has shortfalls. It doesn't necessarily take care of the poor, and it underfunds innovation, so we have to offset that.

If people want capital gains taxed more like the highest rate on income, that's a good discussion. Maybe that's the way to help close the deficit.

If I hadn't given my money away, I'd have had more than anyone else on the planet.

Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.

It's OK for China to invent cancer drugs that cure patients in the United States. We want them to catch up. But as the leader, we want to keep setting a very, very high standard. We don't want them to catch up because we're slowing down or, even worse, going into reverse.

Well-spent aid money is saving lives for a few thousand dollars per life saved.

India has over 20 percent of the kids born in the world. And they move around a lot.

The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can't solve extreme poverty and disease, isn't just mistaken. It is harmful.

There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.

Digital technology has several features that can make it much easier for teachers to pay special attention to all their students.

Personally, I'd like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low.

I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars; there's a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that.

There certainly is a case to be made that taxes should be more progressive.

There is a difference between what technology enables and what historical business practices enable.

The future of advertising is the Internet.

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.