The Wit and Wisdom of Bill Gates

As the personification of both Microsoft and geek success, Bill Gates has had plenty of opportunities to pontificate on a wide range of tech-related topics. Sometimes his insights have proved visionary; other times, well, not so much.

Following is a collection of Gates's wit and wisdom over the last two decades, along with photos from PC World's archives and Microsoft's Web site.

1983

"A lot of software is out there now, and the primary marketplace for it is the PC. Right now, the percentage is very much skewed toward that one machine [the IBM PC], but that will change, although it will probably never drop below 50 percent."

"There's really a lot of dirty software on the market now; we'll have to educate the developers about how to write better software."

From an interview with PC World in our premiere issue, 1983.

1983/1984

"But until Paul Allen and I developed the first microcomputer BASIC in 1975, high-level languages were restricted to mainframes and minicomputers, with which you had the luxury of fast processing capability and large memory."

"Computer languages will continue to adapt to new conditions. In that respect a computer language is just like a human language. Our languages are not static; they follow trends and adjust to new situations. Similarly, computer languages will continue to evolve as the role of the microcomputer continues to expand in our society."

From an article by Bill Gates for PC World's Annual Software Review Special Edition issue.

1986

"We believe there'll soon be a time when many organizations will have a PC on every desk. We need two key ingredients before that can happen--a graphical user interface, in part to take advantage of advances like larger screen, new chips, and laser printers; and networking. People will start to see the benefit of applications that run in a distributed way.

A year from now all PCs sold will be 286-based. Within three years we'll see them become 386-based. Today, we really don't trust the machine in terms of its storage capacity (or the ease of getting at programs) to the extent that we keep data on it long term... Eventually, companies will hand out programs tailored for the work they do. Standard applications and hardware will improve dramatically to a point where they'll help promote PC use. People will feel that if they don't have a PC, they can't be as productive.

We haven't seen a super-small machine with only ten non-memory chips, a chip display with 1000-by-1000-pixel resolution, or a variable-frequency monitor. But we'll get there in the next three years. People in word processing will look at the 640 by 200 we have today and wonder what we were doing--it's like a hammer and a chisel."

From an interview with PC World, January 1986 issue.

1987

His favorite program: "Excel. It is a program that you appreciate more and more as you use it. I use Word often, but since it can't be programmed, it doesn't tap my creativity in the same way."

His most significant accomplishment: "Helping to create a workstation standard with MS-DOS so that the same programs can run on millions of machines. When I was 16, working day and night on a FORTRAN compiler, I realized that hundreds of programs had been written before and mine might not be the best. But they all had to be written because there were so many different instruction sets and operating systems. I wondered then if there was some way to eliminate the wasted effort and get fewer but better programs. Accomplishing that is something I feel good about."

From an interview with PC World, July 1987 issue.

1993

"The work group is a growing phenomenon that will drive the use of PCs... All [future] Microsoft applications will be workgroup applications, and [Windows for Workgroups] is a way for that to come true before we get to their next revisions."

Reported in PC World, January 1993 issue.

1997

"Our vision is one where not only is the PC experience better with a high-speed connection, but of a new generation of TV experience," Gates said, pointing to Microsoft's pending $425 million deal to buy WebTV Networks.

Press conference, reported by Bob Trott, InfoWorld Electric, June 9, 1997.

1999

"The digital world can do better... We have got to make [technology] simpler, we've got to make it cheaper, and we've got to make it relevant."

Privacy issues, he said, can be easily solved by technology, but privacy policy is best left to politicians--not technologists. Gates also urged that more testing be done to ensure software quality, which struck observers as welcome news for Microsoft customers.

Speaking at the 35th anniversary for MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, as reported by Tom Spring, PC World, April 13, 1999.

"The PC will be a server where you store information and create documents. But in terms of browsing the Net and seeing what's going on, you'll have a whole range of devices to choose from."

As reported by Clare Haney, IDG News Service, December 28, 1999.

2000

"Personal TV is the ability to record the TV shows you want and watch them when you want to."

With networked gadgets new and old, "the home will be like a computer."

From his address at the 2000 International Consumer Electronics Show, as reported by Cameron Crouch, PC World, January 6, 2000.

"They want to sit on the panel and talk about how the computers will solve all the world's problems. They're amazing in what they can do, but they have to be put into the perspective of human values. And certainly as a father of two children, thinking about the medicines I take for granted that are not available elsewhere, that sort of rises to the top of the list."

From an October 2000 speech in Melbourne, Australia, as reported by the New York Times, and quoted in PC World's Full Disclosure column, February, 2001.

2001

"[The Tablet PC is] a PC that is virtually without limits and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America."

Speaking at Comdex, 2001, Microsoft's PR notes on the event (and quoted in a 2006 IDG News Service piece by Martyn Williams).

2003

"I think I am still dreaming of that PC that works very, very well someday, and I'll use a new Microsoft product and I won't be sending mail out to all the developers saying, 'Why did you do this?'"

"If you take a big enough vision, you never run out of, in your lifetime, enough work to achieve that vision."

Speaking at the Indian Institute of Technology's 50th Anniversary Celebration gathering, as reported by Paul Krill, InfoWorld.com, January 21, 2003.

2004

"If we look at the PC today, it is certainly a glass half-full in terms of the ease of use."

Interviewed by Richard Newton, Dean of Berkeley University's College of Engineering, as reported by Joris Evers, IDG News Service, October 01, 2004.

2006

"We can't be device centric--we have to be user centric."

Speech at the MIX 2006 conference, as reported by Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service, March 20, 2006.

"We do see, over time, that the ink input for the tablet and speech input will become as important as the keyboard, not replacing it but equally important.

"In fact, we see a day where every student, instead of their textbooks, will simply have their tablet computer connected up to the wireless Internet... That student can have that tablet with them wherever they go, and it's actually lighter than the textbooks and more flexible, richer in terms of what it can offer."

Tokyo conference, as reported by Martyn Williams, IDG News Service, April 21, 2006.

Amber Bouman of PC World contributed to this report.