At 62 years old, Bill Gates has spent almost half his life as the Richest Man in the world. Which means that not only would he not know how much a pizza roll cost, he has probably never been in the same room with a pizza roll. Let alone an entire bag.
“I don't have extravagant taste,” Gates told Ellen DeGeneres as a guest on her show just before the grocery shop challenge failure. Which demonstrates quite the restraint for someone who is worth about 100 billion dollars.
Except of course for, Xanadu 2.0, his 66,000 square foot mansion that overlooks Lake Washington, which he mentioned has a “trampoline room” with a “very high ceiling.”Then there is the fleet of cars which includes a Porsche, a Jaguar, and a Ferrari.
And of course, there is the private plane, which allows Gates to go anywhere, anytime he wants. Even on holidays. What am I saying? Especially on holidays.
Which begs the question, Bill Gates might not know the price of everyday grocery items, but does he know what the term “extravagant taste” means? Or does he just have a different definition than the rest of us do?
Bill Gates, not like the rest of us
Make no mistake, Bill Gates is not like regular people. And he hasn't been for a long time, even before he was the richest man in the world. Regular folk doesn't make 33 million dollars a day (or $114.16 per second). So it should surprise no one that this almost elderly, uber pampered, tech deity, failed Ellen’s grocery shopping challenge, and in all but one case (dental floss), didn't even come close to guessing the actual price.
The fact that he guessed the price of 120 pizza rolls to be double than it actually is got my attention because he got much closer than I thought he would get. It also gave me a great new idea for a product, pizza rolls for the rich. Or bitcoin pizza rolls. I'll work on a name.
By his own admission, Bill Gates hasn't been to a supermarket in years, so he doesn't understand the joy of strolling around a giant sterilized box stocked with the same brands from the same companies, while trying to figure out which of the lines will go the fastest, and whether a bunch of the same product only counts as one item in the express lane.
And what else is Ellen supposed to do? Ask him about his robot tax proposal? Ask Bill Gates what he thinks about her new game show? Of course not. We can all agree, making fun of a 62-year-old billionaire for not going into a supermarket is much more entertaining. Which is why we watch.
