--- title: Bill Gates Fails Guessing Average Grocery Costs on Ellen description: Bill Gates might be a great innovator, but when it comes to guessing the costs for a normal person's grocery shopping, he came up short. canonical: https://time.com/5169246/bill-gates-grocery-shopping/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-21T21:36:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:50:49.484Z og:title: Bill Gates Fails at Guessing What Normal People Pay for Stuff og:description: Not Bill's finest moment og:url: https://time.com/5169246/bill-gates-grocery-shopping/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb327cb3a9a41badd/6989287886f68e88f06e8601/bill-gates-grocery-shopping.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Lin-Manuel Miranda In Conversation With Bill & Melinda Gates og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bill Gates Fails at Guessing What Normal People Pay for Stuff twitter:description: Not Bill's finest moment twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb327cb3a9a41badd/6989287886f68e88f06e8601/bill-gates-grocery-shopping.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Bill Gates Fails Miserably at Guessing What an Average Person's Groceries Cost > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Feb 21, 2018 9:36 PM UTC  NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 13: Bill Gates speaks during the Lin-Manuel Miranda In conversation with Bill & Melinda Gates panel at Hunter College on February 13, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images) NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 13: Bill Gates speaks during the Lin-Manuel Miranda In conversation with Bill & Melinda Gates panel at Hunter College on February 13, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images) John Lamparski—Getty Images  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Feb 21, 2018 9:36 PM UTC When it comes to software or entrepreneurship, [Bill Gates](http://time.com/5086870/bill-gates-guest-editor-time/) is a force to be reckoned with. But if you’re looking for a pal to help you out on [_The Price Is Right_](http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/12/bob-barker-does-something-new-for-his-return-to-the-price-is-right/) or to help you keep costs down on a trip to the grocery trip, Gates is not your guy. The Microsoft mogul appeared on _The Ellen DeGeneres Show_ on Wednesday, where he discussed how he became a billionaire before obliging Ellen by playing game where he guessed the cost of common grocery store staples, like Rice-a-Roni, Tide Pods, floss, and Totino’s Pizza Rolls. And while Gates definitely has the capacity for developing software, when it came to guesstimating how much the average person forks over for snacks and household goods, he was seriously challenged, going so far as to initially postulate that a box of pizza rolls would set you back a whopping $22 (spoiler alert: they’re only $8.98, according to DeGeneres). That being said, Gates is using his considerable wealth to help others; he and wife Melinda [pledged to give away $41.3 billion](http://people.com/human-interest/bill-melinda-gates-why-giving-billions-away/) to help others through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focusing on global health, education, and ending poverty. 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