"Fifty years from now, or 25 years from now, what is the one thing you can be guaranteed of, is the world needs more compute," Nadella said. "So I want to keep those two thoughts and then take one step at a time, and then whatever are the geopolitical or economic shifts, we'll adjust to it."
Gates, who along with co-founder Paul Allen, sought to build a software company rather than sell both software and hardware, said he wasn't sure what the economic effects of the tariffs will be. Today, most of Microsoft's revenue comes from software. It also sells Surface PCs and Xbox consoles.
"So far, it's just on goods, but you know, will it eventually be on services? Who knows?" said Gates, who reportedly donated around $50 million to a nonprofit that supported Democratic nominee Kamala Harris' losing campaign.