What amount of money is Bill Gates Net Worth?

Bill Gates, an American entrepreneur, author and philanthropist with billionaire status has a net worth of $138 billion. It may come as a surprise that most of his wealth does not stem from Microsoft - the company he co-founded. At present times, Bill holds 103 million shares in Microsoft equating to "only" $38 billion considering its current share price valuation at $370 per share. The remaining approximately $100 billion on his portfolio comes from diverse assets he manages through Cascade Investments – the investment vehicle belonging to him primarily controlling these ventures . Some interesting highlights include majority ownership over Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts along with being America's largest private owner for farmland purposes; more information regarding Cascade will be explained later in this article.

Back in 1986, when Microsoft went public, Bill owned the majority stake of 45% while Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen held smaller shares at 8% and 25%, respectively. However, due to stock sales over time, by the year2000 Bill's ownership had dwindled down to a mere14%. Today he owns approximately less than1.4 % which translates into around103 million shares; hence not being labelled as the largest individual shareholder anymore -- credit given instead to his successor Steve Ballmer who presently holds close toe4 percent of company equity.

Owing it all up-to their steep dividends payout policy i.e., $3 annual dividend per share- Both men earn incredibly massive sums annually from lucrative benefits -Bill receives awe-inspiring $309 millionin such payments each year whereas Mr.Ballmer cashes nearlyabillion dollars every fiscal term!

Throughout several decades, Bill has accumulated nearly $60 billion through the sale of stocks and dividends from Microsoft as well as other investments. He has used these proceeds to establish Cascade Investment LLC which serves as a platform for investing in a variety of companies including 270,000 acres of American farmland and significant stakes in public stocks such as Apple, Canadian National Railway, Republic Services, Ecolab Waste Management,and Berkshire Hathaway. Additionally under the auspices of Cascade Investments ,the Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts are controlled.

Bill remained uninterrupted on top rank amongst wealthiest individuals worldwide between 1997 until Jeff Bezos took over his title in July2017; but during that interim period he briefly traded places with Carlos Slim before regaining status again. In recent times spanning one decade,Bill continues ranking among th eworld's five richest people consistently .

Initially, Microsoft was the result of a dialogue between childhood buddies Bill Gates and Paul Allen. After using underhanded tactics to secure an audience with MITS—the company responsible for crafting Altair 8800—he convinced them to produce and market their interpreter. As such, in 1975 this outfit presented Altaire BASIC's first iteration.

Their triumphant debut circumvented hurdles that allowed these two pioneers to fashion their own enterprise dubbed as Microsoft at a later time. In Japan alone they established their inaugural overseas office by no later than '77 whilst domestic operations moved headquarters over state lines towards Washington State where MS-DOS materialised through IBM contracting tech services via competitive bidding protocols circa '80.

Between mid-'80s till roughly the middle part of next decade saw perpetually promising growth transform this entity into technological vigour especially after going publicly traded during '86 resulting in heaps from employees netting millions worth inherited legatees which beetled another quartet who cleared nine figures value thresholds respectively; though anti-trust litigations levelled upon it following monopolising practices across computer industry landscape ended up tarnishing positive public repute around same timeline.