Love him or hate him, there is no question that Bill Gates has had a huge impact on the world. His work with Microsoft profoundly influenced the technological and business landscape of the last 30 years, and his humanitarian work with the Gates Foundation promises to make the world a better place for next 30 years.

Interestingly, Bill G. recently spent some time answering questions over at Reddit. For those not familiar with it, Reddit regularly hosts AMA or "Ask Me Anything" sessions in which Reddit users are invited to submit live questions to an interview subject, and the interviewee responds back more or less in real-time. There have been Reddit AMA sessions with a huge range of well-known subjects, from porn stars to President Barack Obama. The interviews vary in quality and candidness, but are generally worth a look (for example,the AMA with Mythbuster Adam Savage was particularly great).

Bill Gates answered about 35 questions during his AMA, covering topics such as his work at Microsoft, his philanthropic work, personal interests, education, and more. There were no particular surprises in his responses, other than perhaps how down-to-earth the second richest man in the world seems. For instance, consider this Q&A:

idancer: I'm not Bill Gates, but he has made a huge positive influence. Many wealthy people I know point to Bill Gates as their idol. Not for his Microsoft days, but for his philanthropy. He also simultaneously killed many of my friend's hundred million dollar trust funds after their parents discovered that Bill was only leaving $10 million for his children.

thisisbillgates: I 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.

Head over to Reddit to see the full list of questions and answers. Given the comment-rating capabilities of the site, it's generally worth reading through the responses of other users, too. Or if you're really pressed for time, you canjust jump to this comment, in which Reddit user HumanistGeek collects together all the questions and answers in a single comment.