$ cat ./records/established-cascade-investment-llc-1994.txt
Established Cascade Investment LLC
[RECORD.TXT] · cat --full
Gates established Cascade Investment LLC as his private investment vehicle to manage his personal wealth outside of Microsoft. Under the long-tenured management of Michael Larson, Cascade diversified aggressively into real estate, hospitality (becoming a major stakeholder in Four Seasons Hotels and AutoNation), agriculture, and infrastructure. Cascade's patient, value-oriented strategy has grown Gates's non-Microsoft fortune substantially and allowed him to fund charitable commitments at scale. The firm operates with exceptional discretion and is one of the most influential family investment offices in the world.
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303492504579577590869910192
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Related Accomplishments
2026
Gates Foundation Trust Sells Off the Last of Its Microsoft Stock
In the first quarter of 2026, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust sold its remaining Microsoft shares, fully exiting a position in the very company that created Gates's fortune — capping a long, deliberate diversification away from the stock. The endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy, managed separately from its grant-making through Cascade, is now anchored instead by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, railroads, and heavy-equipment makers. The sale underscored how thoroughly Gates's giving had decoupled from Microsoft's day-to-day fortunes.
2026
Gates's Charitable Endowment Is Now Led by Berkshire, Not Microsoft
By 2026, the publicly disclosed stock portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust — the endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy — was led not by Microsoft but by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, Canadian National Railway, Caterpillar, and Deere. Decades of diversification, plus Warren Buffett's stock gifts, left it concentrated in railroads, waste, heavy equipment, and Buffett's conglomerate, while Microsoft — the source of the original fortune — had largely been sold down. The unglamorous, value-oriented mix reflects the long stewardship of Gates's money manager, Michael Larson, through Cascade Investment.
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