If the CEO doesn’t see the playing field, nobody else can. The team may need to see it too, but the CEO really needs to be able to see the entire competitive space.

Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.

I like to tell people that all of our products and business will go through three phases. There's vision, patience, and execution.

Great companies with the way they work, first start with great leaders.

Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.

Accessible design is good design.

There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.

The world is changing, but so is Microsoft.

You get some success. You run into some walls...it's how tenacious you are, how irrepressible, how ultimately optimistic and tenacious you are about it that will determine your success.

And then you take a look at Spaces, there is this great innovation that came out of nowhere. We have the number one blogging site in the world because of the innovation that's there.

I don't really know that anybody's proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value.

I have yet to discover a source of information, practical advice, and hope that compares to the wisdom found in the Bible.

That’s why I wanted to be a writer - because someone I loved told me I could be one.

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

Everyone fears rejection.

If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment-as well as the prison.

Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in sooth The best of all were never to be born.

You many have noticed I have a temper ... but when I calmed down, I realized that this world, blighted and imperfect as it is, would be better with you in it.

People will protect what they love.

In the name of the constitution of Texas, which has been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her.