Bill Gates Giving Quotations

We all need people who will give us feedback. That's how we improve.

Eradications are special. Zero is a magic number. You either do what it takes to get to zero and you're glad you did it; or you get close, give up and it goes back to where it was before, in which case you wasted all that credibility, activity, money that could have been applied to other things.

My experience of malaria was just taking anti-malarials, which give you strange dreams, because I don't want to get malaria.

I don't think it's constructive to grow up having billions of dollars. . . . The idea that I will take a sizeable portion of my fortune and have them inherit that, I don't think that would be to society's benefit or to their benefit. I've spoken out about this before . . . my philosophy of giving back my wealth to society.

We're not even giving you a time-frame. In fact, a lot of people who got the prototype code said, 'Hey this looks pretty good. Gee, you must be close to getting this done.' Because of all the integration and the extreme high level of quality, there's still quite a bit to be done.

If you give people tools, and they use their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.

Employers have decided that having the breadth of knowledge that's associated with a four-year degree is often something they want to see in the people they give that job to.

If you take from the most wealthy and give to the least wealthy, it's good. It starts to balance out.

The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead. Companies that give extra flexibility to their employees will have the edge in this area.

I believe that with great wealth comes great responsibility, a responsibility to give back to society and a responsibility to see that those resources are put to work in the best possible way to help those most in need.

It's the knowledge derived from information that gives you a competitive edge.

The government is somewhat inept, but the private sector is inept in general. How many companies do venture capitalists invest in that go poorly? By far most of them. However, every once in a while a Google or a Microsoft comes out, so people keep giving them money.

If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: "This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving."

Well, no one gives aid to Zimbabwe through the Mugabe government.

Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

You know, development sometimes is viewed as a project in which you give people things and nothing much happens, which is perfectly valid, but if you just focus on that, then you'd also have to say that venture capital is pretty stupid, too. Its hit rate is pathetic. But occasionally, you get successes, you fund a Google or something, and suddenly venture capital is vaunted as the most amazing field of all time. Our hit rate in development is better than theirs, but we should strive to make it better.

You’ve got to give great tools to small teams. Pick good people, use small teams and give them great tools so that they are very productive in terms of what they are doing.

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.

Although I don't have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.

I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you're trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you're giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you're trying to do?

The vision is really about empowering workers, giving them all the

Leaders need to provide strategy and direction and to give employees tools that enable them to gather information and insight from around the world. Leaders shouldn't try to make every decision.

People who feel the world is tilted against them will spawn the kind of hatred that is very dangerous for all of us. I think it's a healthy sign that there are demonstrators in the streets. They are raising the question of 'is the rich world giving back enough?'

Giving money effectively is almost as hard as earning it in the first place.

Everyone knows about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Now help me spread the word about Giving Tuesday!

I think if you talk to the experts in any field where you have to take on a unknown challenge, where you're going to be working on it for a long time you'd find that to work themselves up to their best performance and really throw themselves into it, you know, spend all these hours in there and ah, give it their... give it their best that optimism plays a role.

Anything that someone's interested in should be very, very easy to call up onto the screen. And in fact the computer over time will see what you're interested in and make that immediately available without your having to be give any commands at all.

The US really has to get out in front. We are the biggest per person, by a substantial amount, greenhouse emitters, and we give the most foreign aid, not per person but in absolute.

It is hard to sell Congress and the American people on foreign aid. Is it harder to do that than it is to sell billionaires on the idea that they should give all their money away.

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.

We also had the tragic events of September 11th, and I know for everyone that's caused us to step back, think about our priorities. It's a tragedy that affects us personally and affects our businesses. For the computer industry in particular, I think it highlights the importance of security, giving that far more importance than we've had in the past. We don't want our digital systems to have weaknesses that allow for tragedies, exploiting the weaknesses that are there. And so there's a renewed sense of focus on that.