The way to be successful in the software world is to come up with breakthrough software, and so whether it's Microsoft Office or Windows, its pushing that forward. New ideas, surprising the marketplace, so good engineering and good business are one in the same.
I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people who are trying to figure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try they can figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact.
The nuclear approach I'm involved in is called a traveling-wave reactor, which uses waste uranium for fuel. There's a lot of things that have to go right for that dream to come true - many decades of building demo plants, proving the economics are right. But if it does, you could have cheaper energy with no CO2 emissions.
We are always saying to ourself.. we have to innovate. We got to come up with that breakthrough... we're only paid for breakthroughs.
The next big invention that will change the way we live should be things like ways of generating energy like electricity.
When I say "miracle" I mean a kind of thing like a computer on a chip, or the internet, or the cellphone, that are really quite miraculous. Most people would not have predicted them, and their effect has been very, very dramatic.
The truth of Moore's law has made remarkable things possible. On the software side, I think natural user interfaces in all their forms are equally significant.
People can criticize Microsoft for supporting this TV thing for the past eight years, but it is a long-term bet, There is not any other software business that is as dedicated to the vision of the TV and the PDA [personal digital assistant] as we are.
The most important thing was the creation of a... a standard, where hundreds of companies build hardware that can all run the same software.
I think there's even a chance that [R&D and innovation budgets] might be increased [during Donald Trump Administration] and we should go and make that case to the executive branch, to the Congress.
