Microsoft Co-Founder Pledges Billions to Philanthropy
Microsoft Co-Founder Pledges Billions to Philanthropy
Posted 07/16/2010 at 5:19am
| by Paul Lilly
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Paul Allen, who along with Bill Gates started a little company called Microsoft, and who has been treated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, announced on Thursday that he will be giving away more than half of his estimated $13.5 billion fortune to philanthropy.
"I've planned for many years now that the majority of my estate will be left to philanthropy to continue the work of the foundation and to fund nonprofit scientific research, like the ground breaking work being done at the Allen Institute for Brain Science," Allen said.
According to Forbes magazine, Allen is the 37th richest man in the world. He's already handed out more than $1 billion to various foundations and nonprofit organizations he created in the past two decades.
Allen also joins a growing number of wealthy philanthropists making public commitments to give away their fortunes, partly in response to the urging of Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffet, who last month started a program called The Giving Pledge designed to encourage billionaires to devote half of their fortunes to charity.
Image Credit: paragkalra.com
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Trooper_One
July 16, 2010 at 11:59am
Maybe Gates, Allen, et al, should pay their employees a fair wage, pay their taxes, and pay a fair contract wage to manufacturing employees in China. How about puting some money in for recycling old computer parts and to better the environment. How about stop spending money on lobbying politicians for tax breaks?
How about doing all that in the first place rather than do philantropy on a post hoc basis?
Fucking filthy rich assholes who accumulates 95% of the world's wealth through greedy means!
thetechchild
July 16, 2010 at 8:02pm
How about you imagine this -- through their hard work (moral or immoral) over decades, you accumulate BILLIONS of dollars. Billions. It's their money. Not your's, our's, or anybody's but the one who earned it. Maybe it was controversial how they did it, but it's not for us to tell others how to spend their money. It might be 'greedy means' that allowed them to earn it -- but I don't see you earning in excess of 1 billion USD and giving away half of it.
You can give away 7 billion+ in the interests philanthropy, huh? Or better yet, you have the billions to do something even better? I thought not. Can any of us give away even half of our net worth right now? That's nowhere near their donations, but most of us can't even do that. Which is why I respect the fact that, whatever else about them, at least billionaires give away billions to philanthropy. It's a lot more than we can say about how we help the world.
IFLATLINEI
July 16, 2010 at 9:37am
Its a noble things to do after fleecing customers out of hard earned cash by selling something for way more money than it was worth ( Proven by the boat loads of cash they have accumulated) . I love how these people make headlines like this donating to charities or funding research. But why is it that they always forget the hardworking people who lost their jobs due to corporate greed just like Microsofts for the last 30 years. What about the Katrina victims still suffering after losing homes and everything they own? What about the victims of the Gulf Coast? What about the Soldier who dies and left behind a couple kids and a wife struggling? Quite frankly this is all money that should be in circulation as we speak right now. They could be creating jobs, new companies that just plainly are not greedy. I dont knock what they do but im just trying to point out that theres other and more pressing needs.
jeffhex
July 16, 2010 at 5:58am
He earned it, it is his money to spend as he wishes. Why is this news? For that matter, why is it news how anyone chooses to spend the money they earn?
Paul_Lilly
July 16, 2010 at 8:26am
It's stories like this that further ignite my passion for technology, is the short answer. Paul Allen is one cool cat.
-Paul Lilly
Caboose
July 16, 2010 at 7:55am
Seriously?
He's giving away almost half of his fortune for medical and scientific research! I'd call that news!
Do you see Steve 'Wonder boy' Jobs giving away millions (or... Billions?) to medical research? How many other billionares out there are donating millions or billions to medical and scientific research, or to help those in need? Most of them are money grubbing greedy bastards who only care about themselves and no one else.
If we had more billionares donating ginormious sums of money for medical and scientific research, helping those in 3rd world countries, helping the less fortunate, etc, there'd be a lot more good in this world I think. A lot more people wouldn't starve or die for no reason
-- Sent from my Desktop running Windows 7 64bit
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