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Bill Gates (William Henry Gates III)

(born 1955) An American business magnate, investor, programmer, inventor and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and Chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, and founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has also authored and co-authored several books. He is consistently ranked in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people and Forbes magazine has ranked him as the richest person in the world for twelve consecutive years.

I'm sorry that we have to have a Washington presence. We thrived during our first 16 years without any of this. I never made a political visit to Washington and we had no people here. It wasn't on our radar screen. We were just making great software.

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

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

Life is not fair; get used to it.

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 exciting.

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.

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.

People everywhere love Windows.

Security is, I would say, our top priority because for all the exciting things you will be able to do with computers - organizing your lives, staying in touch with people, being creative - if we don't solve these security problems, then people will hold back.

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.