Quotes by Bill Gates

Here is an extended list of useful or interesting quotes by Bill Gates:

1. “Analytical software enables you to shift human resources from rote data collection to value-added customer service and support where the human touch makes a profound difference.”
2. “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.”
3. “Capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it’s really let us down.”
4. “Every day we’re 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.”
5. “Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved.”
6. “I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.”
7. “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.”
8. “I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people who are trying to figure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try they can figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact.”
9. “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.”
10. “I think it`s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we`ve ever created. They`re tools of communication, they`re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.”
11. “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG.”
12. “If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?”
13. “If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.”
14. “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.”
15. “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.”
16. “Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don’t think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other.”
17. “Instead of buying airplanes and playing around like some of our competitors, we’ve rolled almost everything back into the company.”
18. “Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.”
19. “It’s pretty incredible to look back 30 years to when Microsoft was starting and realize how work has been transformed. We’re finally getting close to what I call the digital workstyle.”
20. “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.“
21. “Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.”
22. “One of the wonderful things about the information highway is that virtual equity is far easier to achieve than real-world equity…We are all created equal in the virtual world and we can use this equality to help address some of the sociological problems that society has yet to solve in the physical world.”
23. “Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.”
24. “Patience is a key element of success.”
25. “Personal computing today is a rich ecosystem encompassing massive PC-based data centers, notebook and Tablet PCs, handheld devices, and smart cell phones. It has expanded from the desktop and the data center to wherever people need it — at their desks, in a meeting, on the road or even in the air.”
26. “Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering. When you finally get done and get to appreciate what you have done it is like a part of yourself that you`ve put together. I think a lot of the people here feel that way.”
27. “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.”
28. “Step back, build a better system, make sure that the government money gets to the people who deserve it.”
29. “Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.”
30. “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.”
31. “The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn`t get bigger or heavier.”
32. “The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.”
33. “The Internet will help achieve “friction free capitalism” by putting buyer and seller in direct contact and providing more information to both about each other.”
34. “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.”
35. “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.”
36. “This is a very exciting time in the world of information. It`s not just that the personal computer has come along as a great tool. The whole pace of business is moving faster. Globalization is forcing companies to do things in new ways.”
37. “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.”
38. “Virtually every company will be going out and empowering their workers with a certain set of tools, and the big difference in how much value is received from that will be how much the company steps back and really thinks through their business processes … thinking through how their business can change, how their project management, their customer feedback, and their planning cycles can be quite different than they ever were before.”
39. “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.”
40. “We are always saying to ourself, ‘We have to innovate. We got to come up with that breakthrough.’ In fact, the way software works, so long as you are using your existing software, you don’t pay us anything at all. So we’re only paid for breakthroughs.”
41. “We don’t have the user centricity, until we understand context, which is way beyond presence. Presence is the most trivial notion, just, ‘am I on this device or not’ — it doesn’t say ‘am I meeting with something, am I focused on writing something.”
42. “We’re only at the beginning of what we have to do here.”
43. “When you want to do your homework, fill out your tax return, or see all the choices for a trip you want to take, you need a full-size screen.”