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Personally, I believe that government, rather than money, tends to be the primary factor limiting the development of new technologies.

It used to be that the only ones with access to cutting-edge technology were top government labs, big companies and the ultra-rich. It was simply too expensive for the rest of us to afford.

Government can encourage innovation, but mainly by doing less, not doing more.

For better or worse, that is true with any new innovation, certainly any new technological innovation. There's many good things that come out of it, but also some bad things. All you can do is try to maximize the good stuff and minimize the bad stuff.

Intellectual-property rules are clearly necessary to spur innovation: if every invention could be stolen, or every new drug immediately copied, few people would invest in innovation. But too much protection can strangle competition and can limit what economists call 'incremental innovation' - innovations that build, in some way, on others.

Government isn't that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you've got to have commercial companies do it.

When you look at this and where it's all going, the hardware business requires a lot of investment. It's very hard, it's very expensive, and ramping up hard on any given platform, whether it's a console or any kind of PC or mobile device, going into the hardware business requires a lot of investment.

An innovation will get traction only if it helps people get something that they're already doing in their lives done better.

I don't believe that government is good at picking technology, particularly technology that is changing. By the time you get it done and go through democracy, it's so outdated.

Technological innovation has dramatically lowered the cost of computing, making it possible for large numbers of consumers to own powerful new technologies at reasonably low prices.