Bill Gates Invests in This Legacy Beer Company

Microsoft's founder believes in the power of suds.

Warren Buffett's top investment rule is "invest in what you know."

But apparently Bill Gates is a rebel, and he is investing nearly $1 billion into a product he doesn't really use. 

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The Microsoft  (MSFT) - Get Free Report co-founder, and the world's fourth richest man, purchased a 3.7% stake in Dutch beer company Heineken  (HEINY) - Get Free Report, despite the fact that in the past Gates has said that he is "not a big beer drinker," according to Reuters. 

Gates purchased the stake on February 17, according to a filing by the Netherlands' Financial Markets Authority. He purchased the shares from Mexico's FEMSA, which is cashing out its stake in the brewer. 

FEMSA sold all 18 million shares it held in the company on February 17, with Gates purchasing 10.8 million of those shares, worth about 883 million euros ($939.87 million).

Gates' Investment Portfolio

Gates has been diversifying his investment portfolio in recent years.

He is the largest private owner of farmland in the U.S., owning about 242,000 acres with assets totaling more than $690 million, according to reports. 

Gates was recently asked why he was buying up so much farmland in the U.S. despite not having a background in farming, he answered, "I have invested in these farms to make them more productive and create more jobs. There isn't some grand scheme involved -- in fact all these decisions are made by a professional investment team."

He also recently revealed the tech innovation he is keeping his eye on in the future. 

"AI is the big one," Gates said in response to a question about a technology people are underestimating. "I don't think Web3 was that big or that metaverse stuff alone was revolutionary, but AI is quite revolutionary."

He went one to identify the areas of AI that interest him most, including innovations that could help pregnant women know if they need to go to the hospital as well as artificial intelligence solutions for malnutrition and anemia.

In the past, Gates has called AI technology "both promising and dangerous," equating AI's potential impact to that of energy and nuclear weapons in 2019.