14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has recently decided to sell some of the shares he owns at the software giant he founded, a move that made former CEO Steve Ballmer the number one individual shareholder in the company.
Bill Gates has been selling Microsoft stock for years, but he's finally prepared to stop doing this as soon as this year, he said in a recent interview with CNBC.
Gates explained that he would stop selling Microsoft shares at the end of this year, which means that he would retain a lot of the company's stock. Of course, he won't re-become the company's biggest shareholder unless he purchases stock from another investor, but this doesn't seem to be an issue for Gates at all.
“I've sold for over a decade the same number of shares every quarter. That plan lasts through the end of this year. You know, I'm going to retain a lot of Microsoft stock, but the U.S. Treasury's done well, many billions of dollars. And you know, I'm excited about the stuff I'm doing at Microsoft right now, you know, re-examining all its strategies, and a lot of great work going on,” he said.
At the same time, Bill Gates also commented on Satya Nadella's early performance as a Microsoft CEO, explaining that he is indeed having a great debut at the helm of the company and he's very likely to continue on the same direction if all the existing plans are turning real.
“Satya is off to an amazing start. He's drawing on a broad set of people in the company to get them to rethink how can Microsoft move a bit faster and really distinguish ourselves with things like Office 365,” Gates added.
Gates has a very close collaboration with Satya Nadella, as the former chief of Microsoft's cloud division is the one that insisted for Bill Gates to return to the company in a more active role. Gates agreed, so he's now holding the role of technical adviser for the Redmond-based software giant, working at least one day a week at the company.
What's more, Bill Gates hasn't rejected the possibility to get involved even more in Microsoft's business in the coming years, pointing out that he would gladly help the existing administration whenever he's asked to. Gates is spending most of this time with the Bill and Melinda Foundation, as he continues his efforts to cure a number of diseases in poor countries across the world.