$ cat ./records/stepped-down-as-microsoft-ceo-passing-the-role-to-steve-ballmer-2000.txt
Stepped down as Microsoft CEO — passing the role to Steve Ballmer
[RECORD.TXT] · cat --full
Gates resigned as Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer after 25 years and handed the role to Steve Ballmer, assuming the title of Chief Software Architect. The transition came as Microsoft's market capitalization briefly touched $586 billion — the highest of any publicly traded company at that time. Gates retained the non-executive chairmanship of the board until 2014 and continued to influence technical direction until his full-time departure in 2008.
Source: https://news.microsoft.com/2000/01/13/bill-gates-to-become-chief-software-architect/
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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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