Cascade Investment, L.L.C.

For nearly 30 years, Michael Larson had served as Mr. Gates’s money manager, earning solid returns on the Gateses’ and the foundation’s combined $174 billion investment portfolio through a secretive operation called Cascade Investment. Cascade owned assets like stocks, bonds, hotels and vast tracts of farmland, and it also put the Gateses’ money in other investment vehicles. Larson was put on leave while the investigation of a sexual harassment claim was underway, but he was eventually reinstated. He remains in charge of Cascade.