Yes -- especially because just about every diversification strategy being promoted over the past 20 years involves putting money into other asset classes that h

Yes -- especially because just about every diversification strategy being promoted over the past 20 years involves putting money into other asset classes that have under-performed the S&P by large amounts. And the arguments for diversification are everywhere. Hard to ignore them. Wealthfront, for example, currently cites a 3-year annualized return of 5.67% on its best batch of portfolios (ie tax-advantaged), and a 5-year annualized return of 9.44%. By contrast, a pure S&P play would have provided 10.09% annualized over 3 years and 15.17% over five. Links are here: https://www.wealthfront.com/historical-performance https://www.wealthfront.com/historical-performance http://quicktake.morningstar.com/index/IndexCharts.aspx?Symbol=SPX http://quicktake.morningstar.com/index/IndexCharts.aspx?Symb... I don't believe BillG had all his money in S&P index funds. But he and/or his managers were able to find other investments that did even better. That's not easy to do, given markets of recent years, as the Wealthfront data indicates.