Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO of Oracle, has pledged to give away “at least 95%” of his $28 billion fortune to charity.
Oh, and in the same announcement, George Lucas said he’d do the same. But few people ever doubted that Lucas’ heart was in the right place. With Ellison, it was less certain.
During the 1990’s tech boom, I worked for a nonprofit that doubled as both a (free, open) news and information service, and as a service provider to nonprofits — we went around the country teaching 501(c)3 groups of all stripes how to use tech to further their missions (and that covered a lot of ground).
It was a great job — even after 60-hour weeks living in hotels far across the country from my own bed, I always felt my work had helped people in specific, quantifiable ways.
It was also an exciting time to be reporting in that sector, because fortunes were being made overnight. (Looking back, we now know most of these fortunes were only on paper, but still, it was exciting.)
And it was particularly exciting because many of these tech entrepreneurs were giving away big chunks of their new fortunes in very public ways. The attitude at the time was that the people drawn to the tech/start-up culture were more in touch with their core values through their work, more in tune with how social networks can bring real benefits to society, and that the type of people working in that field were driven primarily by the thrill of innovation and discovery; not simply greed and profit.
I believe a lot of these (positive) stereotypes were true, although it would have been interesting to see how these newly rich folks would have held on to their values if the tech crash hadn’t removed most of their fortunes.
But I digress.
I was reminded of that time by Ellison’s announcement. He apparently was motivated by the VERY public appeal by Bill & Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett, as part of their “The Giving Pledge” effort.
And during the time of the tech boom, the three biggest tech bazillionaires that HADN’T publicly pledged much of their personal fortunes (as opposed to corporate gifts and donations) were Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs.
Melinda Gates and Bill Gates Sr. went first, announcing plans were underway to create a massive foundation that would funnel the trio’s fortunes into specific areas of global health initiatives, global development (economic aid to the poor), and tech/access and education initiatives in the U.S.
They got off to a roaring start in 1999, and have grown the Foundation’s outreach ever since.
Ellison, not so much. At the time, he was fairly closed-mouth.
It turns out he has been giving away millions, but in a quieter, far less public way. Okay, there was that little dust-up with Harvard University, where he rescinded a $115 million gift because of their ousting of Lawrence Summers. (But Ellison also stated he’d increase his other giving to medical research.)
The reason he’s coming forward and signing this pledge now is that his example may lead other wealthy folks to give and/or make other commitments to the social good.
“Warren Buffett personally asked me to write this letter because he said I would be ‘setting an example’ and ‘influencing others’ to give. I hope he’s right,” he stated in his pledge.
Maybe one measure will be when (rather than if) Steve Jobs announces plans for HIS vast fortune, and how exactly he plans to give it away. That should be fascinating.
James Hyatt 