'The public at large are blind to what's happening at the cusp of technological innovation... Governments are even worse... But what frightens me is that the average engineer working on the front line, doesn't have clue to what's happening at the edges of science and technology either...

On my walkabouts around US and EU factories I ask what on the CEO's mind. Mostly it's procedure, organisation charts, and next quarters financial report and cash-flow... I ask questions about quantum computing, nano-scale engineering, and what radical projects are being worked on?; and it usually draws a blank...

This is what's at the centre of the economic down turn. The average CEO has forgoten how to radically think.'

Bill Gates (pissed off) @ Davos, January 2008.