Bill Gates Quotes

Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one.

Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.

Disruption is a critical element of the evolution of technology - from the positive and negative aspects of disruption a typical pattern emerges, as new technologies come to market and subsequently take hold.

If you run from technology, it will chase you.

Tech is a funny industry; I don't think there is any other industry on the planet that reinvents itself every 10-12 years.

Culturally, I think we have operated as if we had the formula figured out, and it was all about optimizing, in its various constituent parts, the formula. Now it is about discovering the new formula.

Any of our businesses will not exist in the form that is today, will not exist in the same form one year later, two years later... We have to worry about the disruptions in the business models and the practices.

You either innovate or you become defunct.

Incrementalism in technology leads to irrelevance; what you need is revolutionary change.

Any time there is a new idea, it can take some time for policy to catch up to it.

High-speed Internet access, or broadband, is giving entrepreneurs anywhere an unprecedented chance to disrupt entire industries and transform our country.

When Colin Powell showed up as Secretary of State in 2001, most State Department employees still didn't even have computers on their desks. When I got there they were not mostly permitted to have handheld devices. I mean, so you're thinking how do we operate in this new environment dominated by technology, globalizing forces? We have to change, and I can't expect people to change if I don't try to model it and lead it.

I'm a great believer in particularly being alert to changes that change something, anything, by an order of magnitude, and nothing operates with the factors of 10 as profoundly as the Internet.

Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority. It wasn't like somebody told me about it and I said, "I don't know how to spell that." I said, "Yeah, I've got that on my list, so I'm okay." But there came a point when we realized it was happening faster and was a much deeper phenomenon than had been recognized in our strategy.

Technological change is discontinuous. The monks in their scriptoria did not invent the printing press, horse breeders did not invent the motorcar, and the music industry did not invent the iPod or launch iTunes.

A significant inventionmust be startling, unexpected. It must come to a world that is not prepared for it.

The Higher Education Industry is very analogous to the Newspaper industry. By the time they realize they need to change the costs to support their legacy infrastructure and costs will keep them from getting there.

I had a new idea on the way to this meeting this morning, but that doesn't mean we should put it in the platform.

Now, with the Internet, you're either five years ahead or you're five years behind, and the music game is catchin' up right now.

You must be on top of change or change will be on top of you.

The digital revolution is forever. They put importance on that option as well. With Amazon, you're getting the best of both worlds, with a whole new playing field.

Here, all of a sudden, we have a revolution in - in communication, and it is - it is really, truly big. Internet is as big as the introduction of fire to the human race, or the introduction of electricity into our lives.

Over the years, I have learned that every significant invention has several characteristics. By definition it must be startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If the world were prepared for it, it would not be much of an invention.

Old ways will always remain unless some one invents a new way and then lives and dies for it

The paperless office is possible, but not by imitating paper. Note that the horseless carriage did not work by imitating horses.