It's not true to say Bill Gates is the man who has everything. His charitable foundation is still striving to eradicate malaria and even the wealth of Croesus couldn't wipe out world poverty, as he would like to do. But with a personal worth of £55 billion, there isn't a desert island on earth the Microsoft founder couldn't kit out with broadband if he wanted to – unless it was the one featured in BBC Radio 4's long-running Desert Island Discs programme.

Gates became the latest high-profile guest on the show when he granted a rare interview to presenter Kirsty Young for the programme broadcast today.

The 60-year-old chose music by, among others, Willie Nelson, The Beatles and (wait for it) Ed Sheeran, and there's no prize for guessing what he wanted as his luxury item. “That breaches every possible rule,” said Young in her best school mistress voice when Gates asked for an internet connection.

Duly chastised, he chose instead a collection of DVDs of lectures by some of the world's top academics and said his preferred book would be The Better Angels Of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. “I'm always telling people to read it,” he added. “But it's very long, so on a desert island I guess I'll get to read it many times”.

Gates spoke about leaving Harvard aged just 19 to focus on founding Microsoft and gave an indication of how hard he worked in the first decade of the company's existence when he revealed that he would memorise his employees' car number plates “so I could look out into the parking lot and see when people came in and when they were leaving. Eventually I had to loosen up”.

He also spoke plainly about his relationship with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2011, and revealed what the pair talked about the last time they met.

“For some periods we were complete allies working together. I wrote software for the original Apple II. Sometimes he'd be very tough on you, sometimes he'd be really encouraging and he got really great work out of people.

“In the early years, the intensity [of the relationship] had always been about the project ... then as Steve got sick it was far more mellow in terms of talking about our lives and our kids.”

Gates dedicated his sixth music choice, The Beatles' Two Of Us, to Jobs, who had mentioned the song in an interview the pair had given together.

“Steve was really into music. He loved The Beatles and so did I and when we did the interview he actually mentioned this song, saying it was kind of like this journey we'd been on where we'd been competing and working together and only we understood how intense [it was] and what great memories came out of that.”

Elsewhere Gates laid a few myths to rest - no, he doesn't schedule meetings in one minute slots; yes, he did once lose his driving licence for speeding - and talked about how he met his wife Melinda, their shared love of The Sound Of Music, their marriage in Hawaii and the special surprise guest who serenaded them the evening before the nuptials.

“He kind of walked down the beach with his guitar and I said 'Let's have this guy sing some songs for us'”. “He” was country legend Willie Nelson, whose Blue Skies was Gates's second music choice.

Finally, Gates addressed some of the criticisms which have been made of his charitable organisation, The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation, adding: “It's important that big institutions be subject to criticism … [it] is important because we're out there working on big, big issues. 'To whom much is given, much is expected'. That's something my Mom said.”