$ cat ./records/microsoft-pays-realnetworks-761-million-over-media-player-bundlin-2005.txt
Microsoft Pays RealNetworks $761 Million Over Media-Player Bundling
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In 2005, Microsoft agreed to pay RealNetworks $761 million to settle an antitrust suit alleging that Microsoft had used its Windows monopoly to crush Real's media player by bundling Windows Media Player into the operating system for free. The settlement — roughly $460 million in cash plus $301 million in cash and services — was one of several large payouts Microsoft made in the 2000s to rivals it had been found or accused of harming. It underscored how the bundling tactics that helped build Microsoft's dominance under Bill Gates carried a steep legal price.
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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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