Bill Gates Quotes

“There’s one last way we can cut down on emissions from the food we eat: by wasting less of it. In Europe, industrialized parts of Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, more than 20 percent of food is simply thrown away, allowed to rot, or otherwise wasted. In the United States, it’s 40 percent. That’s bad for people who don’t have enough to eat, bad for the economy, and bad for the climate. When wasted food rots, it produces enough methane to cause as much warming as 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year.”

“The climate is like a bathtub that’s slowly filling up with water. Even if we slow the flow of water to a trickle, the tub will eventually fill up and water will come spilling out onto the floor. That’s the disaster we have to prevent. Setting a goal to only reduce our emissions—but not eliminate them—won’t do it.”

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

“[Bill] Gates said he connected with [Eddy] Izzard even though it would appear they have nothing in common — but that might be the point the author is trying to communicate. "I've recently discovered that I have a lot in common with a funny, dyslexic, transgender actor, comedian, escape artist, unicyclist, ultra-marathoner, and pilot from Great Britain. Except all of the above," Gates wrote. "We're all cut from the same cloth. In his words, 'We are all totally different, but we are all exactly the same”

“I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill.”

“Solar cells, for example, got almost 10 times cheaper between 2010 and 2020, and the price of a full solar system went down by 11 percent in 2019 alone.”

“I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.”

“It’s impossible to overstate the unearned privilege I enjoyed: to be born in the rich United States is a big part of a winning birth lottery ticket, as is being born white and male in a society that advantages white men.”

“It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”

“Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren’t so exciting.”

“If you want to understand the kind of damage that climate change will inflict, look at COVID-19 and then imagine spreading the pain out over a much longer period of time.”

“The world uses more than 4 billion gallons every day. When you’re using any product at that kind of volume, you can’t simply stop overnight.”

“DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of good friendships in my life. I’ve come to the same conclusion as [one] Harvard study on human life: good relationships make you happier and healthier.”

“The vision is really about empowering workers giving them all the information about what’s going on so they can do a lot more than they’ve done in the past.”

“Well, Steve [Jobs]… I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”

“Earlier, I mentioned a related technology called direct air capture. It involves exactly what the name implies: capturing carbon directly from the air. DAC is more flexible than point capture, because you can do it anywhere. And in all likelihood, it’ll be a crucial part of getting to zero; one study by the National Academy of Sciences found that we’ll need to be removing about 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year by mid-century and about 20 billion by the end of the century.”

“In my view, investing in public libraries is an investment in the nation's future."

“Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.”

“Power comes not from knowledge kept but from knowledge shared.”

“The point is that when we focus on all three things at once—technology, policies, and markets—we can encourage innovation, spark new companies, and get new products into the market fast.”

“But giving people more information can help them make better choices.”

“Computers are great because when you're working with them you get immediate results that let you know if your program works. It's feedback you don't get from many other things.”

“If you give people tools, and they use their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.”

“So it's an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids. Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn't have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today. And so the people who go and engage in those anti-vaccine efforts -- you know, they, they kill children. It's a very sad thing, because these vaccines are important.”

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.”

“In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not...”

“times with follow-up questions. Eventually it sank in. The world needs to provide more energy so the poorest can thrive, but we need to provide that energy without releasing any more greenhouse gases. Now the problem seemed even harder. It wasn’t enough to deliver cheap, reliable energy for the poor. It also had to be clean.”

“But we can’t solve a problem like climate change without an honest accounting of how much we need to do and what obstacles we need to overcome.”

“During the last ice age, the average temperature was just 6 degrees Celsius lower than it is today. During the age of the dinosaurs, when the average temperature was perhaps 4 degrees Celsius higher than today, there were crocodiles living above the Arctic Circle.”

“To sum up: We need to accomplish something gigantic we have never done before, much faster than we have ever done anything similar.”

“Well, I went for a ride but I didn't find my car”

“Whatever other resources you may have, you can always use your voice and your vote to effect change.”

“But I hope you’ll spend more time and energy supporting whatever you’re in favor of than opposing whatever you’re against.”

“I believe that if you show people the problems and you show Them The Solutions They Will Be Moved To Act”

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”

“Business is a money game with few rules and a lot of risk.”

“I studied every thing but never topped.. But today the toppers of the best universities are my employees"

“In this business, by the time you realize you are in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless your running scared all the time, you're gone.”

“It may sound old-fashioned, but letters and phone calls to your elected officials can have a real impact.”

“Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.”

“Remember that we need to find solutions for all five activities that emissions come from: making things, plugging in, growing things, getting around, and keeping cool and warm.”

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.”

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

“Some people may call me a nerd. I claim the label with pride.”

“There are two numbers you need to know about climate change. The first is 51 billion. The other is zero. Fifty-one billion is how many tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year.”

“There’s no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw. It’s like saying that as of 1932, cars didn’t have radios in them, so they should never have radios in them.”

“The cruel injustice is that even though the world’s poor are doing essentially nothing to cause climate change, they’re going to suffer the most from it.”

“Unless we move fast toward zero, bad things (and probably many of them) will happen well within most people’s lifetime, and very bad things will happen within a generation.”

“If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.”

“In essence, governments can say to each other, “If you want to do business with us, you’ll have to take climate change seriously.”

“Making things (cement, steel, plastic) 31% Plugging in (electricity) 27% Growing things (plants, animals) 19% Getting around (planes, trucks, cargo ships) 16% Keeping warm and cool (heating, cooling, refrigeration) 7%”

“the problem of overgeneration in the summer and undergeneration in the winter.”

“In other words, by mid-century, climate change could be just as deadly as COVID-19, and by 2100 it could be five times as deadly.”