Bill Gates

This is a complex issue. Privacy will be increasingly important as cameras and GPS sensors are gathering information to try and be helpful. We need to have trust in the way information is protected and gathered. There is a role for the government to try and stop crime and terrorism but it will have to be more open. I do think terrorism with biological or nuclear weapons is something we want to minimize the chance of.

I did answer unless the NSA deletes my answer.

I am excited about how the cloud and new devices can help us communicate and collaborate in new ways. The OS won't just be on one device and the information won't just be files - it will be your history including being able to review memories of things like kids growing up. I was thrilled Satya asked me to pitch in to make sure Microsoft is ambitious with its innovation. Even in Office there is a lot more than can be done.

I make sure we pick ambitious scenarios and that we have a strong architecture to deliver on them. I encourage good work (hopefully).

The ultimate is computers that learn. So called deep learning which started at Microsoft and is now being used by many researchers looks like a real advance that may finally learn. It has already made a big difference in video and audio recognition - more progress in the last 3 years than ever before.

Yes - the terms are a little confusing. Learning can mean a low level thing which all machine learning algorithms do or the high level idea of reading a book and understanding what it means.

I think this was supposed to be sarcastic...

Just creating an innovative company is a huge contribution to the world. During my 20's and 30's that was all I focused on. Ideally people can start to mix in some philanthropy like Mark Zuckerberg has early in his career. I have enjoyed talking to some of the Valley entrepreneurs about this and I am impressed and how early they are thinking about giving back - much earlier than I did.

Its called shorting a stock.

Owning a plane is a guilty pleasure. Warren Buffett called his the Indefensible. I do get to a lot of places for Foundation work I wouldn't be able to go to without it.

This is a sensitive topic. The idea was that men don't like the current design so perhaps something they would be more open to would allow for less HIV transmission. We still haven't gotten the results. One grantee is using carbon nanotubes to reduce the thickness,

The foundation is involved in digital money but unlike Bitcoin it would not be anonymous digital money. In Kenya M-pesa is being used for almost half of all transactions. Digital money has low transaction costs which is great for the poor because they need to do financial transactions with small amounts of money. Over the next 5 years I think digital money will catch on in India and parts of Africa and help the poorest a lot. (http://www.impatientoptimists.org/posts/2011/01/mobile-phones-savings-a-powerful-pair)

Education would be the top issue since it is key to individual opportunity and to the country as a whole and we are not doing as well as other countries. After that I would say immigration since the injustice of the current system is incredible.

We need low cost energy that is totally reliable. Most renewables will require storage which is expensive to do this. Nuclear will make a contribution if we can make it safer, cheaper and deal with waste better. Terrapower has a design (on paper) that addresses all of these issues so now we are talking to countries about building it. It is a 4th generation reactor design that uses depleted uranium.

20 years ago I would stay in the office for days at a time and not think twice about it - so I had energy and naivete on my side. Now hopefully I am a bit more mellow but with a little extra wisdom.

Terrapower is like most fast reactors which use Sodium cooling. We tried to stick to proven approaches wherever we could. There have been about 10 Fast Reactors. By using this approach we have no fuel problems and very limited waste generation. Most important is the inherent safety - no human involvement for shut down.

My time will be about 2/3 Foundation and 1/3 Microsoft. I will focus on product work mostly.

Well Smil keeps writing great books like Made in the USA and Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Paul Farmer has 3 books recently - to Repair the World is very accessible. In the Company of the Poor is a harder read but also good. www.gatesnotes.com tracks my reading closely. (http://www.thegatesnotes.com/books)

The greatest tragedy is kids who die or never get enough food to develop physically or mentally to achieve their potential. We need vaccines and nutrition to solve this. We are making progress but not fast enough.

Cynicism is the biggest barrier - www.gatesletter.com talks about this.

No I cannot. I can still jump but not over a full sized garbage can like I used to be able to. Be careful - it can hurt if you don't succeed.

Yes. A small enough chair I can still jump over.

Melinda would probably watch that version.

I am using a Surface 2 PRO which works well for me.

The Windows project which required a lot of patience was great. Office was also great. Together they defined the big success of the 1990s for Microsoft. Office connected to the cloud has a LOT of potential and we are off to a good start. Cloud Storage needs to be a lot richer though.

The boundaries between form factors is blurring but the range of screen sizes and different input techniques will still mean there are desktop devices and wall devices. However applications will be able to run across multiple devices including the whiteboard.

A lot of our failures have been backing science that didn't work out. One thing that is tough is when you think the government will take over something you start but they don't - we had that with a school lunch program. It might have been better if we hadn't done it.

Invest in your education.

I never went for a big salary but your basic point is correct.

I think in the next 20-30 years we will be able to almost eliminate gross inequity like the fact a child in a poor country has 30x more chance of dying than a child in a middle income or rich country. Literacy, nutrition,... These are basic things that we can afford to give to every child. In the meantime the rich world needs to make sure we handle the environment and the diseases of the rich.

I love college courses. I still watch a lot of them. I read a lot about people who had been successful. College was fun for me. So the part of the higher education system I got to experience was amazing - unfortunately most people don't get to go to Harvard or the equivalent.

It is strange to call me a college drop out in all but the most literal sense. I went for 3 years and took enough courses to graduate. So I am kind of a failure as a drop out and I don't have a degree....

No I don't. Other people think about that but I wouldn't want to extend my last few years unless that is happening for most people.

We are very close. India just went 3 years with no cases. Pakistan is our toughest location right now because some parts of the Taliban have not allowed vaccinators to come in and have even attacked vaccinators. We are hopeful this will get resolved since no one wants their kid to be paralyzed. I spend a lot of time making sure the polio campaign is doing the best it can. We have great computer models that help guide our activities.

Wow. That is a nice thing to ask. I wish the debate about education would focus on helping teachers improve and what we know about that. Right now it is caught up in state versus federal and testing versus no-testing. In general politics needs to focus on the problems rather than attacking the other side. Asian countries are helping their teachers improve and the impact is huge.

I am not a huge gamer. My son knows a LOT more than I do about what is cool on Xbox. I played Halo but the sports games that the whole family can use are the things I use the most. I threw the javelin very very far!

Satya is taking a fresh view of where Microsoft is - strengths and weaknesses. A new person gets to step back and change the focus in some ways. He is off to a great start.

In terms of the Foundation we fund vaccines that save childrens lives. The majority of those are made in India. In fact ironically India makes a lot of vaccines that are used in other countries but not in India. The Foundation is not trying to help anyone make money - simply to reduce the number of children who die from things like diarrhea and pneumonia.

I considered law and math. My Dad was a lawyer. I think though I would have ended up in physics if I didn't end up in computer science.

Kids getting hurt or sick.

People who devote their lives to working in poor countries are doing amazing work with very little visibility. I have gotten to meet some of them.

In all countries vaccine rumors seem to always get ahead of vaccine facts. This is unfortunate since it has meant measles and pertussis deaths in communities where enough kids don't get vaccinated.

Playing Bridge is a pretty old fashioned thing in a way that I really like. I was watching my daughter ride horses this weekend and that is also a bit old fashioned but fun. I do the dishes every night - other people volunteer but I like the way I do it.

Burger King and McDonalds are fine but In-N-Out is a very good burger. Dicks and Burgermaster are the local special burgers.

I favor improving the health of a country to enable them to be self-sufficient. I will be interested to see how cash transfer works out - in some cases like helping someone pay a school fee it could be catalytic. Our focus is health and agriculture which can transform a country. As long as kids don't have enough nutrition a country won't be able to support itself.

I love him but any similarity was not intentional.

One of my favorite movies is Brainstorm - I highly recommend it!

I tried to answer as many questions as I could, but I’ve got to go. I do have one question for you: How can we help more people understand that foreign aid isn’t 25% or even 10% of the U.S. federal budget, but less than 1%?