Bill Gates on Microsoft

•“Microsoft is not about greed. It’s about innovation and fairness. If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.”
Memo from 1991

•“When we have the information highway, I’ll put it out there. Everybody who wants to pay, I don’t know, one cent, can see what movies I’m watching and what books I’m reading and certain other information. If I’m still interesting, I’ll rack up dollars as people access that part of the highway.”
Playboy Magazine interview 1994

•“As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime
in the next decade”
Speaking of Chinese computer users at the University of Washington 1998

•“Our most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.“
Business @ the speed of thought from Gates’ book 1999

•“Business is going to change more in the next 30 years than it has in the last 50.”
Business @ the speed of thought 1999

•“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.”
Interview 1991

•“Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It’s a good thing we have museums to document that.”
Speaking at Computer History Museum 2004

•“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
The Road Ahead 1996