Gates on the Past, the Future, and Google

Excerpts From: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2060022,00.asp

Here are some observations from Gates in response to questions from Rose:
# On whether there's another idea today that is as powerful as the idea of the personal computer in the 1970s: "If I knew medicine like I do computers, I would like to be able to control the [human] immune system, to fight against the onset of disease on a world level ... but I think the idea of the PC still would have topped that."

# On Microsoft's increasing competition with Google: "I've been told that Google is the company most like ours. That may be true. Well, we overlap in a lot of areas. We're both software companies, so we're competing on a lot of levels. They hire a lot of smart people, we hire a lot of smart people. Google Earth is fantastic; what they do is free and a huge benefit to all. They're very good at knowing how to use high traffic at their sites and turning it into profit.

"We're going to compete in search. We think our Live.com will be a better search in a lot of ways. Competition between our two companies will be good for the whole industry."

# On what changes IT will make in society over the next 10 years: "Changes are now coming faster than ever. We'll be seeing more and more students using tablets instead of stacks of books in schools and in online learning. We'll have computers that can see and learn like people ... we'll continue to see major breakthroughs in software development, in things like voice recognition, gaming [and] video. We're on to new and important advances in IT, just as we were at the advent of the PC.

"In gaming, [the] TV, high-definition video [and] PC are all coming together now in the Xbox. Voice recognition will get better ... software and services with improved interfaces wrapped around them will be coming soon. Our new Zune [media player] has built-in Wi-Fi, so you can send your friends music and photos and messages ... we'll continue to see this kind of innovation building on top of what we have today. We're moving toward more connected entertainment everywhere.

"We're on to another wave of innovation; we just need to make sure the United States continues to stay right up there in relation to the rest of the world."

# On entrepreneur Buffett's announcement that he is donating upwards of $31 billion to the care of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over the next few years ($1.6 billion has already been transferred): "It's mind-blowing what Warren's done. To leave the bulk of his estate to a foundation like ours in order to deepen its use for good around the world -- it is truly amazing and humbling at the same time. We'll just do out best [in using the money]; I get to make sure it goes back to society in important ways -- that's kind of daunting.

"We want to move quickly as possible on diseases like malaria and AIDS, to find vaccines; we're convinced we'll have a vaccine for malaria relatively soon. It's tough when you realize that 1 million kids die every year from malaria, and 500,000 each year from rodovirus (a gastrointestinal virus that mostly attacks children). I get a little upset with the media, which will cover a plane crash in India that killed 100 people, but it won't cover the fact that 1,000 times that many died in Africa today from malnutrition or disease."

# On the United States keeping up with India, Japan, China, Germany and other countries with getting students involved in math and science and keeping them in the field: "The U.S. has been lucky for a long time to remain in the leadership position we are in. Our leadership has been so out of line with our 5 percent of the world population. We are very special for being in leadership for so long.

"As new brains come into the new economy, we will all benefit, thanks to technology. But the [population] numbers are overwhelming -- we're going to have to get used to the world catching up to us [in innovation]."

# On the early days of Microsoft: "When I moved to Albuquerque (in the mid-1970s) to start the company, we knew that we were at the beginning of something big. I mean, we hired like nine people, and they had to move themselves and their families there; it was risky and serious business.

"We always thought we could do a small slice of software business ... up until then, companies always did both hardware and software. Turns out we did more than a small slice."
# On the off-chance he'll return to Harvard to finish his studies some day: "I like to think I'm 'on leave' from Harvard. My parents really wanted me to finish. But the likelihood of me returning is not very high."