$ cat ./records/in-microsofts-early-days-gates-memorized-employees-license-plates-1980.txt
In Microsoft's Early Days, Gates Memorized Employees' License Plates to Track Their Hours
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Bill Gates has acknowledged that in Microsoft's earliest years he was so work-obsessed that he memorized the license plates of his employees' cars so he could tell from the parking lot who was arriving early and leaving late. 'I knew everybody's license plates so I could look out in the parking lot and see when did people come in, when were they leaving,' he told BBC Radio 4, adding that he 'didn't really believe in vacations' and eventually had to relax the practice as the company grew too large to track. The anecdote — corroborated in early Microsoft histories — captures the relentless, demanding culture Gates set at the company he co-founded.
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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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