Creating a huge personal fortune was never particularly a goal of mine, and the proof of that lies in the fact that even to this day most of my, and my family’s, wealth remains in the form of Wal-Mart stock. I think most people in our position would have hedged their bets a long time ago and diversified into all kinds of investments. As it’s happened, though, our very simplistic, very personal investment strategy has turned out far better than anyone could ever have expected. So Wal-Mart stock has made the Waltons a very wealthy family—on paper anyway.

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