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"Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will host an \"Ask Me Anything\" on Reddit today, beginning at 1:45 p.m. Eastern Time.\nGates gave Reddit a heads-up a little early today, announcing the AMA at about 12:40 p.m. EST, including a photo of him holding a stick-drawn figure of himself next to the Reddit icon. He also posted a short YouTube video with his answers to \"popular\" Reddit questions. His publicist confirmed that Gates would begin answering questions around 1:45 p.m.\n\nGates kicked things off by answering a question about the open Internet at recent pushes against it, such as SOPA, the long-dead Stop Online Piracy Act:\n\nThe Internet has benefited from having lots of free stuff and lots of commercial software. It has been interesting see people inventing hybrid models. Even stuff that is pretty commercial often has free versions for some audiences. Even the most open stuff often have services people choose to pay for.\nThe second thing is the anonymous versus identified tension. This is another one where both will probably thrive since you want anonymity for some things and full identity for others. I am surprised how little progress has been made in the identity space but it will improve.\n\nGates, who still ranks among the world's richest people, talked about the \"cheapest\" thing that gives him the most pleasure:\nKids. Cheap cheeseburgers. Open Course Ware courses...\nOn where he gets the \"cheap kids\" from:\nThe stork.\nOn the Microsoft project that got away:\nWe had a rich database as the client/cloud store that was part of a Windows release that was before its time. This is an idea that will remerge since your cloud store will be rich with schema rather than just a bunch of files and the client will be a partial replica of it with rich schema understanding. (Gates also confirmed it was called WinFS.)\nOn his relationship with Steve Jobs:\nHe and I respected each other. Our biggest joint project was the Mac where Microsoft had more people on the project than Apple did as we wrote a lot of applications. I saw Steve regularly over the years including spending an afternoon with him a few months before he tragically passed away...\nOn what emerging technology he sees as potentially disruptive as the PC:\nRobots, pervasive screens, speech interaction will all change the way we look at \"computers\". Once seeing, hearing, and reading (including handwriting) work very well you will interact in new ways...\nOn Bing vs. Google search:\nSeriously Bing is the better product at this point. Try the challenge. I am biased but the work to make Bing better has been amazing.\nOn leaving his children \"only\" $10 million:\nI definitely think leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favor to them. Warren Buffett was part of an article in Fortune talking about this in 1986 before I met him and it made me think about it and decide he was right. Some people disagree with this but Melinda and I feel good about it.\nOn what world problem needs solving, but not with money:\nIt would be nice if all governments were as rational as the Nordic governments - reaching compromise and providing services broadly. The Economist had a nice special section on this last week. Africa governments have often been weak but you can't write a check to change that. Fortunately the average quality is going up. Mo Ibrahim tracks this in a great way.\nOn whether or not he still codes:\nNot as much as I would like to. I write some C, C# and some Basic. I am surprised new languages have not made more progress in simplifying programming. It would be great if most high school kids were exposed to programming...\nAbout the computer he's using right now:\nI just got my Surface Pro a week ago and it is very nice. I am using a Perceptive Pixel display right now - huge Windows 8 touch whiteboard. These will come down in price over time and be pervasive...\nOn what people give him for his birthday:\nFree software. Just kidding. Books actually.\nOn his favorite book:\nMy favorite of the last decade in Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature. It is long but profound look at the reduction in violence and discrimination over time. I review a lot of the books I read at gatesnotes.com (is that too self-promotional?)\nOn whether he still jumps over chairs, which he once demonstrated he can do from a standing position:\nLess than I used to. It was part of exercise for snow skiing. I still ski but I am not as hard core...\nOn what he would have done if Microsoft hadn't worked out:\nIf the microprocessor had NOT come along I am not sure what I would have done. Maybe medicine or theoretical math but it is hard to say.\nOn with worldwide health problems are most immediately solvable:\nPolio is the first thing to get done since we are close. Within 6 years we will have the last case. After that we will go after malaria and measles. Malaria kills over 500,000 kids every year mostly in Africa and did not get enough attention until the last decade. We also need vaccines to prevent HIV and TB which are making progress...\nOn violence against health care workers in parts of Asia and Africa:\nThe violence against the vaccinators in both Pakistan and Nigeria is a terrible thing. However both countries are committed to finishing the eradication. This is the project I spent most of my time on. We should be able to finish by 2018 although that will require raising funds and some great execution. We have some innovations like the way we use satellite maps to find all the villages and GPS tracking to make sure the teams go to every hut that are helping out. Polio is a harder disease than smallpox was but it is doable. (I discuss this more at www.billsletter.com)\nOn other philanthropists:\nI have enjoyed meeting other philanthropists and talking about what they work on. I think there is a movement to do more, start sooner and be smarter about giving. Philanthropy is mostly about a broad set of people giving but it helps if the most wealthy set a strong example...\nOn how he measures success of his foundation:\nOur goals are focused on helping the poorest (globally) and improving education (in the US). We spend half of our money on global health. One metric to look at is reducing the number of children (under 5) who die. My annual letter talks about the amazing progress that has been made on this. Amazingly as health improves families choose to have less kids so paradoxically population growth goes DOWN as you improve health helping with almost every issue \u2014 from stability to the environment.\nOn his favorite band:\nWeezer.... Actually U2 is a favorite.. I keep waiting for Spinal Tap to go back on tour...\nOn his foundation's greatest achievement:\nSo far our biggest impact has been getting vaccines for things like diarrhea and pneumonia out which has saved millions of lives. Polio will be a great achievement along with key partners when that gets done.\nOn the anti-vaccine movement in the U.S.:\nVaccines are very important in all countries. Some of the bad rumors have lead to kids dying of measles and pertussis. We have backed some information campaigns on the importance of vaccination even in the US.\nOn his worst fear for the future:\n\nHopefully we won't have terrorists using nuclear weapons or biological weapons. We should make sure that stays hard.\nI am disappointed more isn't being done to reduce carbon emissions. Governments need to spend more on basic energy R&amp;D to make sure we get cheap non-CO2 emitting sources as soon as possible.Overall I am pretty optimistic. Things are a lot better than they were 200 years ago...\n\nOn what he does for fun:\nI love playing tennis. I am an avid bridge player (a card game if you have not heard of it - it was more popular in the past!). I like to tour interesting things with my kids like power plants, garbage dumps, the Large Hadron Collider, Antarctica, missile Silos (Arizona)... I read a lot and watch courses (online or the Learning Company)...\nOn how he feels about his portrayal in Pirates of Silicon Valley:\nThat portrayal was reasonably accurate...\nOn what's left on his bucket list:\nDon't die...\nOn health challenges in India:\nIndia is making progress but there is still a lot to do particularly up in the North. They still need to add some of the vaccines that poorer countries are already using and saving lots of lives. India did a great job on polio and is increasing the health budget. We work closely with the federal and state governments to help out...\nOn Windows 7 vs. Windows 8:\nHigher is better.\nOn the world's dependence on oil:\nI did a TED talk about the climate crisis. Over time we have to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions so using fossil fuels will require us to do carbon capture and sequestration. There has been far too little work on this.\nBONUS: 20 Silliest Questions Asked During Barack Obama Reddit AMA\n\n\n20 Silliest Questions Posed to Obama in Reddit AMA\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1. Star Trek vs Star Wars\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2. Bulls Fan\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n3. Tyson vs Mercury vs Harris\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n4. Double the Teeth Questions\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n5. Cats\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n6. White House Beer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n7. Breakfast\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n8. Zombie Lincoln or Real Lincoln?\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n9. South Park\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n10. Second City Steak\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n11. Biden B-Ball\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n12. East Coast, West Coast\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n13. Group Pizza\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n14. Double the Bacon\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n15. Another Beer Question\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n16. Cheese\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n17. Busted Internet\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n18. Procrastinated in Chief \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n19. Marvel\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n20. Oval Office Toilet Paper\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nImage courtesy of Bill Gates\nHomepage image via Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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