Microsoft Co-founder Giving Half His Money Away
Charitable billionaires are promising half of their money to charity.
Bill Gates is famously a very charitable man. However, there's another charitable soul in Microsoft's history. Paul Allen, who helped Gates found Microsoft in the 70's but left in the 80's and officially resigned from his place on the board in 2000, is constantly donating money to different causes. Now, Allen has promised to give away the majority of his fortune when he dies.
Paul Allen is already a dedicated philanthropist. He's donated millions upon millions of dollars to the University of Washington and has made substantial multi-million dollar donations to various different charities and medical organizations. Allen has already given more than the average person can (the New York Times puts it at about $1 billion so far), but last night the Microsoft co-founder said he would be giving more than half of his $13.5 billion 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," NYT cites Allen as saying in a statement.
Allen's pledge is in response to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates' call for the country’s billionaires to give half their money to charity. Several other billionaires have made the same promise as Allen, including Eli and Edythe Broad and John and Ann Doerr.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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chickenhoagie we need more people like this these days..too much seperation of wealth. people have more money than they can spend these days, which is why i salute people like this to actually realizing this.Reply
who needs their own personal jumbo jetliner? -
tharkis842 Yah know, if they'd donate some of that to the american people in need all around this country, we could turn this economy around and get people back to work. Bring businesses back to our shores.Reply -
fball922 How much money do people need? As much as they can acquire from the fruits of their labor. Props to Allen for giving away so much of his money, very honorable, but don't criticize the people who don't, or think that if you can somehow get wealthy people to just give up their wealth all of the problems of the world would be solved... Its their money, they can do with it what they like, and that is OK by me :)Reply -
Pyroflea I'll take 6 or 7 digits if you don't mind :DReply
Good on him. It gets to the point where you realize you have everything you could ever want, and you eventually get over the whole obsession with material possessions. He did a wonderful thing :) -
mackinator tharkis842Yah know, if they'd donate some of that to the american people in need all around this country, we could turn this economy around and get people back to work. Bring businesses back to our shores.Reply
dont say stupid things, switching whos hands the moneys in doesnt help the economy.please take an economy class before commenting on it -
johnnylawman01 He better do it before he dies. Cause if he doesn't, after the end of this year the Government will take over half that if he doesn't!Reply -
JOSHSKORN Can I have some of that money, please??? I need a house in a nice area rebuilt from the ground up made to ADA specification. Not much of that around. :(Reply -
m-manla the_krasnoThe other half is still 6.75 billion bucks. Where is THAT going?Reply
Gotta have some left for the family.