Bill Gates hosted a Reddit AMA ("Ask Me Anything") this afternoon, covering a wide range of topics including his leadership of Microsoft, the activities of his foundation and who his favorite band is (U2, if you were wondering).

While much of the discussion went over old material (Gates at one point defended his and his wife's decision to leave only $10 million to each of their three children), he also revealed a few new insights. Also, the unfiltered nature of a Reddit AMA gave Gates a chance to put both his genius and wit on display to a crowd that consists largely of people just like him: geeks who are passionate about the Internet and technology.

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Although he'd never done an AMA before, Gates seemed to "get" the dynamic and how Reddit's commenting system works. His answers were never particularly long, sometimes venturing deep into the comments to respond to an obscure query or observation. He occasionally bordered on talking points when discussing his foundation's work, but answered most questions directly and kept it light when appropriate.

When it was all over, readers walked away knowing the Microsoft co-founder (and current chairman) a little better. Among the new insights:

1. His computer is wicked cool.

Gates revealed that he's now working on a Microsoft Surface Pro. No surprise there — it makes sense the co-founder of the company would be one of the first to get the company's Windows 8 flagship PC. But he also has an external monitor befitting a billionaire: a huge Perceptive Pixel display that he uses as a "Windows 8 whiteboard."

Microsoft bought Perceptive Pixel last year, and Gates also said the cost of its huge touchscreen monitors would eventually come down, and the tech would be pervasive. He would know...

2. He originally planned to integrate the cloud into Windows Vista.

Could computing is a relatively recent phenomenon, but Gates had wanted to bring it mainstream a few years early with the 2007 release of Windows Vista. Asked about any killed Microsoft projects that never made it to market, Gates described "a rich database as the client/cloud store that was part of a Windows release that was before its time."

He later confirmed to a commenter that the project was called WinFS and was originally going to be part of what became Windows Vista.

3. He's funny.

Replying to a question about the "cheapest thing" that gives him the most pleasure, Gates included "kids" (as well as cheeseburgers). Another redditor asked where he was acquiring "cheap kids" and Gates replied "the stork."

Another commenter asked Gates to "be honest" when answering which was better: Windows 7 or Windows 8? Gates replied that "Higher is better." And when asked what people get him for his birthday, he initially answered "free software" before saying he was kidding.

4. He still codes.

Gates left his job as Microsoft CEO years ago to devote himself full-time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but he still finds time to dabble in programming. When asked if he still codes, Gates said he doesn't as much as he'd like, but he occasionally dashes off some C, C# and BASIC. He's also disappointed that new languages haven't made more progress in simplifying programming.

5. He's an extreme tourist.

So what does Bill Gates do for fun? Besides tennis and bridge, he apparently loves to tour interesting places and things with his kids. Some noteworthy examples include power plants, garbage dumps, the Large Hadron Collider, missile silos and Antarctica(!). He probably has some pretty obscure Foursquare badges.

Image via Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images