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Steve Ballmer said his investment strategy is partly influenced by Warren Buffett.
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But Ballmer, whose net worth is greater than Buffett’s, has an unconventional investment portfolio.
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More than 80% of Ballmer’s portfolio is held in Microsoft shares, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Steve Ballmer has an unorthodox investment approach.
The former Microsoft CEO is worth $151 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the ninth richest person in the world.
This puts him ahead of famous investor Warren Buffett by a margin of almost $10 billion.
In an interview published Sunday, Ballmer told The Wall Street Journal that his investment strategy is partly influenced by Buffett, who has long said that most people who pick stocks can’t beat the returns of a general index fund. But there is one important difference.
The Journal reported that Ballmer holds more than 80% of his portfolio in Microsoft stock. The rest is held in index funds. Ballmer declined to say how big his stake in Microsoft is.
“Microsoft has outperformed virtually every other asset I could have owned,” Ballmer told the Journal.
Ballmer’s investment strategy goes against conventional wisdom, which suggests people reduce their risk by diversifying their capital across asset classes. And the richest people in the world typically go beyond stocks and bonds and invest in illiquid assets like private equity and real estate. Ballmer said he is “primarily choosing from private equity.”
It’s fair to say that Ballmer didn’t always buck the trend.
The 68-year-old has tried to diversify in the past, but said he has struggled to find money managers who consistently beat the market.
“The only stock I really study anymore is Microsoft, because it’s still overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly the No. 1 thing I own,” Balmer told the outlet.
Ballmer started his career at Microsoft in 1980 and succeeded founder Bill Gates as CEO in 2000.
Ballmer owned 333 million shares, or a 4% stake, in Microsoft when he stepped down as CEO in 2014, according to regulatory filings.
Microsoft shares are up 16.1% this year. The Seattle-based tech giant has been at the forefront of the AI race with huge bets on startups like Sam Altman’s OpenAI and France’s Mistral AI.
In October, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an earnings call that the company’s AI business is on track to surpass $10 billion in annual revenue next quarter.
This would make it the fastest company in Microsoft history to reach this milestone, Nadella added.
Ballmer attributes his huge gain in Microsoft stock to luck.
“Forget the stock price. I was basically lucky to listen to the right people,” Ballmer told the Journal.
“But I was also lucky in terms of my loyalty to the company and not wanting to be a salesman as the leader of the company. It also turned out to be a great investment,” he added.
Ballmer did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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