Why did bill gates sell his stake in Microsoft? he could be worth $ 300 billion if he didn't sell it

Bezos surpassed bill gates to become the world's richest man in the latest issue, according to Forbes. although bill gates's wealth rose from $ 84 billion to $ 90 billion, he still lost $ 115 billion to Bezos.
This is a very interesting phenomenon, in the past 24 years, bill gates became the world's richest man in 18 years, only a few people, once briefly beyond him.

Bill gates is the founder of Microsoft, he loved computers at an early age, his wealth is also from Microsoft, but strange, now in Microsoft bill gates has 1 % of the remaining shares, you know when he most, holding 44.8 % of the shares of Microsoft, this is in 1992.

Bill gates has been selling Microsoft shares for more than two decades. These shares have been exchanged for tens of billions of dollars in cash over the past two decades, and Microsoft has given gates at least $ 8 billion in dividends and wages, putting the world's largest cash wealth into all walks of life.
But many people are very curious, bill gates why do you want to do so, if he doesn't sell shares, he holds a stake in Microsoft so far, so his personal wealth will reach $ 300 billion, he is three times the Bezos, so most of the world's richest people are difficult to surpass him in a short period of time. But bill gates did not choose to hold it for a long time. after he met Buffett, he began to choose Buffett's rationale for not putting eggs in a basket.

Bill gates hired an investment manager named Michael Larson many years ago to set up a company called waterfall investments, a company of less than 100 people that now handles one of the world's largest private fortunes.
Michael Larson set up a quarterly strategy for reducing Microsoft's holdings in batches until last year, when only 1 % of the company's holdings remained. And reduce the cash, is put into all walks of life. In real estate alone, it includes a 9.8 % stake in strategic hotels & resorts real estate investment trust, as well as the ritz - carlton hotel in San Francisco, the landmark of Harvard's campus focus — Charles hotel — and hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in California, Illinois, Iowa and Louisiana.

Interestingly, bill gates hardly ever invested in technology again. perhaps in his eyes, the best technology company is his own Microsoft. in addition to his real estate investment, bill gates also invested in the stock of many famous companies in the world.
Include the national railway corporation of Canada, Berkshire Hathaway, a good friend of Buffett's, dill, the world's leading agricultural giant, liberty global, and so on.

More than 80 % of bill gates's wealth now comes from his private investment company, not his Microsoft stake.
On paper, diversification reduces risk but yields much less. But in fact is not the case, that is why Li ka-shing is richer than ma reason.
Li ka - shing's shares are worth less than Mr ma's, but his holdings are diversified and mostly fixed assets. That is to say, Li ka-shing liquidity is better than ma yun, for the rich, their wealth is they can master the circulation of wealth, that is, the more liquidity, is the real more money.
Ma with Bezos wealth has a characteristic, very focused on a company stock, when they choose to reduce the company stock for cash, if large-scale concentration reduction, will cause the company's value plummet, so his fortune will also be greatly affected, that's why bill gates to spend more than 20 years to complete all the reduction of Microsoft stock.
We can see that although ma is worth more than Li ka - shing, but Li ka - shing, very easily can call tens of billions of investment in Europe, and Mr ma's investment in the world last year only 90 billion, and Li ka - shing sold hong kong's central center has been cashed out 40 billion. This is the biggest difference.
Knowing this, you know why bill gates did it. Simply put, bill gates is still the richest man in the world on real power.