When you started Microsoft, you had a crazy-sounding idea that someday there would be a computer on every desktop. Now, as you return to Microsoft 40 years later, we have computers not just on our desktops, but in our pockets – and everywhere else. What is the biggest surprise to you in the way this has all played out?

Well, its pretty amazing to go from a world where computers were unheard of and very complex to where theyre a tool of everyday life. That was the dream that I wanted to make come true, and in a large part its unfolded as Id expected. You can argue about advertising business models or which networking protocol would catch on or which screen sizes would be used for which things. There are less robots now than I would have guessed. Vision and speech have come a little later than I had guessed. But these are things that will probably emerge within five years, and certainly within 10 years.

via Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview | Rolling Stone.

That's how the must-read interview begins.