Gates: Being rich is overrated

A hamburger is still a hamburger, millions in your pocket or not. So says the nation's richest man who struck this cautionary note for anyone striving to join the ranks of the 1 percenters: Being super-rich isn't all it's cracked up to be.

In a Q&A session with students on Thursday following a speech at the University of Washington Microsoft co-founder Bill Gate said that money was never his driving ambition. Gates told the students who turned out to see him that he reached the pinnacle of business success simply by doing what he loved.

When one student in the crowd asked for pointers on how to get rich, Gates tried to redirect his questioner's aspirations.

"I didn't start out with dream of being super-rich," he said, recalling that ven after starting Microsoft he looked at the people running Intel and thought, "Wow, that must be strange (to be rich). It is, sort of strange. Wealth above a certain level is a responsibility to leave to children, which may or may not be good for them, or figure out how to give it away."

"I can understand about having millions of dollars," Gates continued. "There's meaningful freedom that comes with that, but once you get much beyond that I have to tell you, it's the same hamburger. Dick's has not raised their prices enough."