Beyonce‘s “Formation” has been the most talked about song in America for several weeks–save maybe Rihanna‘s “Work”–and its reach is expanding. In a new interview with Wired, Microsoft founder and mega-billionaire Bill Gates was asked for his thoughts on Bey’s new, oft-talked about single, and he had a strange reaction to the lyrics once he was made aware of his being mentioned in it.
Yeah, I hadn’t realized that she did that until somebody in the office actually sent me a copy of the lyrics and I said, ‘Are you serious? This is kind of a strange set of words here.’ I’m surprised—I’m not sure she said those words at the Super Bowl, though, did she?
“Strange set of words,” is a strange set of words to use when describing being mentioned in Beyonce’s new single. The lyrics in question are “You just might be a Black Bill Gates in the making/I might just be a Black Bill Gates in the making.” Maybe Gates was referring to Beyonce comparing herself, an entertainer, to him, a programmer.
Maybe not, but he did go on to confirm that he took the mention as a compliment, silently acknowledging that the first half of his comments didn’t make that too obvious. “I guess it’s nice that people consider me successful,” said Gates before giving a quick Jay Z story. “I know Jay Z because when I did some humor right when I was retiring from Microsoft—he was nice about participating in that, and did a great job on that. I guess I should do a Bing search and see if there are more uses of my name that I don’t know about.”
Read the full Wired interview here.
