Bill Gates News Quotations

Headlines, in a way, are what mislead you because bad news is a headline, and gradual improvement is not.

Paper is no longer a big part of my day. I get 90% of my news online, and when I go to a meeting and want to jot things down, I bring my Tablet PC. It's fully synchronized with my office machine so I have all the files I need.

Strategically, a major function of the CEO is to look for bad news and encourage the organization to respond to it. Employees must be encouraged to share bad news as much as good news.

Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement.

The flatter the corporate hierarchy, the more likely it is that employees will communicate bad news and act upon it.

I set a rule that people weren't allowed to send good news unless they sent around an equal amount of bad news. We had to get a balanced picture. In fact, I kind of favored just hearing about the accounts we were losing because ... bad news is generally more actionable than good news.

The willingness to hear hard truth is vital not only for CEOs of big corporations but also for anyone who loves the truth. Sometimes the truth sounds like bad news, but it is just what we need.

Convert bad news to good news.

I've been struck by the role that technology plays and especially that the Internet played during this crisis. On September 11th hundreds of millions of people relied on the Internet to get news and to communicate with loved ones.