Microsoft looks at new ideas, they don't evaluate whether the idea will move the industry forward, they ask, 'how will it help us sell more copies of Windows?' April 30, 1998.

About 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. 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.

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. 1994.

If something's expensive to develop, and somebody's not going to get paid, it won't get developed. So you decide: Do you want software to be written, or not? 1980.