Bill Gates was recently listed as the wealthiest man in the world by Forbes. According to the list he is currently worth $77.2 Billion. He made his fortune as the co-founder of Microsoft which makes it a little shocking to believe that he will have no more company stock in four years. Gates has been selling 20 million shares a quarter for the last dozens years and if this current rate continues it will be all gone by 2018.
The end of last week witnessed the history of Gates no longer being the largest shareholder of the company. It is estimated that he still holds 330 million shares of the company. This equates to roughly 4% of the total Microsoft shares in existence. He stepped down as CEO in 2000 and removed himself as chairman this past February. Gates is still on the board though, spending a chunk of his time advising the company on new technological innovations.
In the grand scheme of things Gates going stockless won’t really change too much. He hasn’t had the same hands on control since he abdicated his position as CEO. Besides, when you’re an individual who is valued as the wealthiest person on the planet earth, you’re probably not stressing about money. Infact it has become Gates mission to give away most of his wealth. Started by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, and Michael Bloomberg have pledged to give away half their fortunes during their lifetimes.
This is what we truly like to see from the people who have it all. Giving back. With the economic gap between rich and poor reaching its greatest differential, Gates is proving that there are wealthy individuals who care about those less fortunate. Their greatest focus through the foundation has been assisting those in extreme poverty with poor health care systems in developing countries, as well as failures in the American education system. He will be just fine once he runs out of shares. Bill knows money isn’t real, but you can sure do a lot of good with it anyways.
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