This Just In: Bill Gates Does The Dishes

By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Bill Gates does the dishes.

The founder of Microsoft, which has a massive data center here in Chicago, answered a variety of questions on Reddit on Monday. He also covered more serious topics: like improving local schools, like those in Chicago.

One of the more interesting admissions, and perhaps hard to imagine, is the Mr. Gates volunteers to do the dishes because "I like the way I do them."

He acknowledged that "other people" (not clear if that means his wife, kids or the staff) offer, but he declines the help.

Gates also admits he's "not a huge gamer." (He does like to play bridge, however.)

"My son knows a LOT more than I do about what is cool on Xbox," he said. "I played Halo, but the sports games that the whole family can use are the things I use the most. I threw the javelin very very far!"

On much more serious matters, Gates also discussed the biggest problems facing poor nations.

"The greatest tragedy is kids who die or never get enough food to develop physically or mentally to achieve their potential. We need vaccines and nutrition to solve this. We are making progress but not fast enough. Cynicism is the biggest barrier - www.gatesletter.com talks about this."

Closer to home, Gates said the United States must depoliticize the debate over education and simply focus on helping teachers improve.

"I wish the debate about education would focus on helping teachers improve and what we know about that," he said. "Right now it is caught up in state versus federal and testing versus no-testing. In general politics needs to focus on the problems rather than attacking the other side. Asian countries are helping their teachers improve and the impact is huge."