Acquired Hotmail — the world's largest webmail service
Microsoft acquired Hotmail for an estimated $400 million, making it the company's largest acquisition to that date. Hotmail had launched only 18 months earlier and already had 8.5 million subscribers — the largest webmail service in the world. Gates recognized web-based email as a strategic asset and rebranded the service MSN Hotmail. It eventually evolved into Outlook.com, which now serves more than 400 million users.
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Related Accomplishments
January 2024
Gates Uses Shell Companies to Quietly Accumulate $113 Million Nebraska Farmland Portfolio
A January 2024 investigation by The Guardian and Floodlight News revealed that entities connected to Bill Gates's Cascade Investment had used a network of limited liability companies — including Cottonwood Ag Management — to quietly purchase approximately 20,588 acres of Nebraska farmland valued at roughly $113 million, without disclosing the beneficial owner to local sellers or county officials. The acquisitions were part of Gates's wider strategy to become the largest private farmland owner in the United States, with holdings exceeding 269,000 acres across 18 states, managed through Cottonwood Ag Management and its parent Leading Harvest, which develops regenerative agriculture certification standards.
2024
Breakthrough Energy Ventures Raises $839 Million Fund III with Food and Agriculture Focus
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