Bill Gates.

Microsoft Was Founded with a Vision of a Computer on Every Desk, and in Every Home. We’ve Never Wavered from That Vision.

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, but I Think Religious Principles Are Quite Valid.

Just in Terms of Allocation of Time Resources, Religion Is Not Very Efficient. There’s a Lot More I Could Be Doing on a Sunday Morning.

It’s Fine to Celebrate Success, but It Is More Important to Heed the Lessons of Failure.

If You Can’t Make It Good, at Least Make It Look Good.

I Am a Strong Proponent of Measuring Teachers’ Effectiveness, and My Foundation Works with Many Schools to Help Make Sure That Such Evaluations Improve the Overall Quality of Teaching. but Publicly Ranking Teachers by Name Will Not Help Them Get Better at Their Jobs or Improve Student Learning. on the Contrary, It Will Make It a Lot Harder to Implement Teacher Evaluation Systems That Work.

At Microsoft, We Created a Rigorous Personnel System, but We Would Never Have Thought About Using Employee Evaluations to Embarrass People, Much Less Publish Them in a Newspaper. a Good Personnel System Encourages Employees and Managers to Work Together to Set Clear, Achievable Goals. Annual Reviews Are a Diagnostic Tool to Help Employees Reflect on Their Performance, Get Honest Feedback and Create a Plan for Improvement. Many Other Businesses and Public Sector Employers Embrace This Approach, and That’s Where the Focus Should Be in Education: School Leaders and Teachers Working Together to Get Better.

Developing a Systematic Way to Help Teachers Get Better Is the Most Powerful Idea in Education Today. the Surest Way to Weaken It Is to Twist It into a Capricious Exercise in Public Shaming. Let’s Focus on Creating a Personnel System That Truly Helps Teachers Improve.

Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard Is One of the Great Collections of Intellectual Talent in the World. What for Purpose? There Is No Question That the Faculty, the Alumni, the Students, and the Benefactors of Harvard Have Used Their Power to Improve the Lives of People Here and Around the World. but Can We Do More? Can Harvard Dedicate Its Intellect to Improving the Lives of People Who Will Never Even Hear Its Name? Let Me Make a Request of the Deans and the Professors-the Intellectual Leaders Here at Harvard: as You Hire New Faculty, Award Tenure, Review Curriculum, and Determine Degree Requirements, Please Ask Yourselves: Should Our Best Minds Be Dedicated to Solving Our Biggest Problems? Should Harvard Encourage Its Faculty to Take on the World’s Worst Inequities? Should Harvard Students Learn About the Depth of Global Poverty… the Prevalence of World Hunger… the Scarcity of Clean Water …the Girls Kept Out of School… the Children Who Die from Diseases We Can Cure? Should the World’s Most Privileged People Learn About the Lives of the World’s Least Privileged?

If We Can Stretch the Reach of Market Forces so That More People Can Make a Profit, or at Least Make a Living, Serving People Who Are Suffering from the Worst Inequities. We Also Can Press Governments Around the World to Spend Taxpayer Money in Ways That Better Reflect the Values of the People Who Pay the Taxes. If We Can Find Approaches That Meet the Needs of the Poor in Ways That Generate Profits for Business and Votes for Politicians, We Will Have Found a Sustainable Way to Reduce Inequity in the World