And finally…do as I say, not what I sell

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has revealed that despite becoming the world’s richest person by selling computer technology he did not allow his own children to have mobile phones until they had turned 14 and that he himself still uses a $10 Casio watch.

In an new interview with The Mirror, Gates, who has become an active philanthropist since resigning as Microsoft chairman in 2014, said that as well as his modest timekeeper, he also has simple culinary tastes, insisting that he’s “big on pretty mainstream American hamburgers, McDonald’s, Burger King.”

The tycoon may have built his fortune on tech sales but he told the paper that while his kids clamoured for mobile phones as young teenagers, he and his wife Melinda ignored their complaints and, like many other parents, still imposes rules on gadget use in the house, and is constantly trying to figure out where to draw the line.

Despite their vast wealth, the Gates family, who lives in Lake Medina, just outside Seattle, Washington, has previously said they want to give their children as normal an upbringing as possible.

“You’re always looking at how it can be used in a great way – homework and staying in touch with friends – and also where it has gotten to excess,” Gates, whose current net worth is estimated to be approximately $87 billion, told The Mirror.

“We don’t have cellphones at the table when we are having a meal, we didn’t give our kids cellphones until they were 14 and they complained other kids got them earlier.”

In 2013, the 60-year-old tech mogul told NBC’s Today show that 13 was the appropriate age for children to begin indulging in digital screen gadgets.

“We’ve chosen in our family that it’s 13 where you get a phone,” the self-made billionaire explained at the time.