Investing

The 9th Richest Person in the World Got the Best Revenge and Made Billions

Austin Smith

Published: December 1, 2024 11:21 am

Last Updated: February 17, 2025 6:49 am

Key Points:

• Steve Ballmer, the ninth richest person in the world with a net worth of $145 billion, built his wealth only from his position at Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT).
• Ballmer is the biggest individual stakeholder of the corporation since he decided to keep his Microsoft shares after resigning in 2014, despite being ousted.
• His strategy emphasizes the need of long-term investment by contrasting with early buyers like those in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), who sold too soon.
• Also: see if you’re ahead, or behind for your own retirement and speak with an advisor today. Click here to begin. (sponsored)

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Doug: It is a gamble, but shooting over to the net worth world. Uh, it’s always, you see these guys who are billionaires.

[00:00:08] Doug: People who have, let’s say over a hundred billion dollars. Why are they doing better than just a hundred billion dollars? So I was looking at Steve Ballmer’s number recently. Steve Ballmer is the, uh, ninth richest person in the world. He has 145 billion net worth. Now he has a distinction of the richest people in the world.

[00:00:32] Doug: He is the only one who did not either found the company. Like Muffet. Or he did not inherit something like the Waltons did. Right. His money came from one thing. He was, uh, he was Bill Gates roommate at Harvard. Gates left Harvard and started Microsoft in 1975. He hired pretty early

[00:00:58] Lee: on

[00:00:58] Doug: early on. He was clearly Gates Lieutenant and became the CEO from 2000 to 2014.

[00:01:07] Doug: But the brilliant thing this guy did in his career, the most brilliant thing is he did not sell his Microsoft stock. They pushed him out. They brought in somebody who was more of a tech guy. The stock is more of a sales guy, actually. Yeah. The stock is up. I think about eight X since he left. Right.

[00:01:27] Doug: All he did was hold onto his shares. He now owns four, 4 percent of Microsoft. That’s the largest and he gets a

[00:01:38] Lee: pretty good dude in the boot to help him with his basketball team doesn’t win.

[00:01:43] Doug: So you’ve got a guy who’s now the ninth richest person in the world because he was Bill Gates roommate. And he is the largest individual shareholder of Microsoft.

[00:01:53] Doug: Now, a lot of guys, when they got pushed out of CEO would say, you know, screw you. I’m going to sell all my shares. You didn’t say that. He said the best revenge is to hang on to them.

[00:02:04] Lee: Well, he knew that he’s smart and he didn’t have to sell it because, you know, he’d made a decent salary over the years as president slash whatever else he was.

[00:02:14] Lee: And so he was living off that and he knew. He knew, which is smart because and, and for our viewers, remember there’s a story of a guy who was an initial investor in Apple, an initial investor, and he wanted out and he sold his shares for like $800 . And I think Ballmer knew that story. And he’s like, that ain’t gonna be me.

[00:02:36] Doug: That ain’t gonna be.