Bill Gates dropped out of college to co-found Microsoft. He's a prodigy who has become one of the richest men in the world. But when it comes to the stock market, he follows the advice of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
Wall Street has been on a bull run since Donald Trump was elected, and policymakers are expected to announce an interest rate increase on Wednesday, only the second in a decade. Despite the excitement, though, Gates says he will not change his investing strategy.
Instead, he is going to stay true to the Oracle of Omaha, he tells CNBC.
Gates believes in "the philosophy that Warren Buffett has put forth that you can find great companies and invest in them, then the macroeconomics can go up and down and the basic value of what you are holding onto there will be maintained throughout that," the Microsoft co-founder says.
Gates, who is worth more than $80 billion, is busy running his foundation and his newfound clean energy investment fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, so he has a staff that manages his investments for him. He says his team isn't equipped to make day-trades based on political negotiations.
"We are long-term oriented and don't think that we understand the macroeconomics enough that we are making bets that are specific to that piece," says Gates.
Investing strategy isn't the only thing that Gates and Buffett agree on. They also have the same favorite business book: "Business Adventures," by John Brooks. In the book, which came out in 1969, the former staff writer for The New Yorker compiled 12 stories that originally appeared in the magazine.
Also, Gates and Buffett started the giving pledge, a call for wealthy individuals to publicly commit to give away the majority of their money to philanthropy.
