We want to be one of the most valuable companies in the world and also one of the most generous. Those shouldn't be contradictions.
Patriotic philanthropy is the idea that if you've benefited from living in this country, you have an obligation to give something back to preserve its history and institutions.
My wife carries the BRCA gene. That is why we have given over $100 million to cancer research. Some things are more important than returns.
Wealth is not about how much you accumulate but about how much you distribute. I have never met a happy hoarder.
During the COVID crisis in India, we raised $100 million for oxygen and medical supplies. Some people build companies to make money. Some build them to make a difference. I want both.
I give $5,000 to 1,000 entrepreneurs every year with no strings attached. Some will fail. But the ones who succeed will create jobs, pay taxes, and transform their communities. That's the highest-return investment I know.
Wealth is not just about accumulation. It is about what you do with it. Generational impact is the highest return on investment there is.
On behalf of the eight generations of my family who have been in this country, we are going to put a little fuel in your bus. This is my class, 2019. And my family is making a grant to eliminate your student loans.
I will keep at it until the safe is empty.
I am not interested in building monuments to wealth. I am interested in using it to solve problems that outlast me.
I do not want to accumulate wealth indefinitely. The goal is to deploy it effectively while I am alive to see the impact.
In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share.
Bill Gates funded our first grant. He understood that food waste in developing countries is not a luxury problem — it is a survival problem.
A malaria bed net costs $2 and saves a life. That is the most efficient investment in the world. No stock can compete with that return.
I was Zuckerberg's roommate. I helped build Facebook. But the thing I am most proud of is giving away $1 billion to causes that save lives.
I have given away $17 billion because you cannot take it with you and your grandchildren do not need $100 billion.
I committed $1 billion to COVID relief — 28% of my wealth at the time. When the world is on fire, sitting on cash is not an option.
I made enough money by 38 to fund every cause I care about. Keeping the fund open would have been selfish.
Evidence-based policy is not popular because evidence often contradicts what people want to believe.
We have given away over 3 billion dollars. Criminal justice reform. Education. Healthcare. The returns on philanthropy compound just like investment returns.
I built a school in Akron. The I Promise School. That is my real legacy. Not the championships.
One percent of equity. One percent of product. One percent of employee time. The 1-1-1 model has been adopted by 17,000 companies.
Salesforce has generated 35 billion dollars in revenue and given away 600 million dollars to charity. You do not have to choose.
Philanthropy should be structured like venture capital — high-risk, high-reward bets on breakthrough science.
RED proved that you don't need charity to fight AIDS. You need good products with a purpose.
If there is one thing I have learned, it is that the return on investment in improving lives is the highest return you can earn.
Science can cure disease. We just need to invest in it at the right scale and with the right time horizons.
$100 billion sounds like a lot. When you're trying to cure all diseases, it's a starting point.
I have invested more in Chukotka than any government program ever did. Sometimes you have to spend your own money on things governments won't.
I started the Foundation because I got lucky and had access. Most women entrepreneurs don't. That has to change.
Wildlife conservation is the most important investment I'll ever make. No financial return. Just a moral one.
We've built over 600 skateparks in underserved communities. Every kid deserves a place to skate.
I spent 27 years sharing a vision with someone else. Now I get to define what my $12.5 billion means on my own terms.
I donated £100 million to Cambridge because the future depends on science, not on making hedge fund managers richer.
Mapping the human brain is the most important scientific project of our century. I put a billion dollars behind that belief.
I own the Seahawks, the Trail Blazers, and one of the world's largest yachts. But the Allen Institute will outlast all of them.
Capitalism without compassion is not something I believe in. Wealth creation must benefit the many, not just the few.
Billionaires who don’t use their money for the planet are just renting their spot on the Forbes list.
I made my money fixing broken bones. Now I’m trying to fix a broken planet. The second job is harder.
Perpetual endowments are a cop-out. Give the money now, when it can do the most good.
I had one idea that never changed in my mind — that you should use your wealth to help people.
I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while you can.
I made a lot of mistakes. But if you look at the broad picture, the money got used well.
A free press isn't free. Someone has to pay for it. I'm willing to be that someone.
Giving back is not something you do after you have made your money. It is something you do while you are making it.
The ocean covers seventy percent of the planet and gets one percent of the attention. That is the biggest market inefficiency I know.
We made a one billion dollar commitment to education because talent is the Arab world's most underdeveloped asset. The return on that investment will outlast anything else we build.
Kuwait's strength is not oil. It is the character of its people. We must invest in that character, or the oil will one day run out and we will have nothing left.
Zakat is not a tax. It is a cure for greed. It reminds you that your wealth does not belong entirely to you.
Wealth is a trust from God. We are custodians, not owners. What we hold, we must share.
Wealth without giving back is just a number. A big number, but still just a number.
The Arab world does not lack talent. It lacks systems that trust and empower that talent. That is what education reform must fix.
If you have more than you need, you have a responsibility to share it. It is not a choice. It is an obligation.
Modern slavery is the great hidden crime of our age. More people are enslaved today than at any point in human history. That is a fact that should make everyone uncomfortable.
We want to give in a way that is as impactful as possible. That means being willing to fund things that are hard to measure and that most people are ignoring.
Dustin and I have been incredibly fortunate. We feel a moral obligation to deploy this capital as effectively as we possibly can.
AI safety is one of the most important and most neglected problems we are aware of. That combination is exactly what we look for.
I believe there are people in the world with the capabilities to solve its biggest problems. My job is to find them and back them.
In business, I have always looked for sustainable competitive advantages. In philanthropy, I look for the same thing — what intervention creates a lasting change in outcomes, not just a temporary improvement.
I did not create my own good fortune. I was given a huge leg up by having been born in the United States to a family that could provide education, nutrition, and safety.
I want Tulsa to be the best place in the world to be a poor child. Everything else follows from that.
I am not interested in giving people fish. I want to help them build fisheries.
Being unreasonable means being persistent when everyone tells you to stop. It means going back to the table when the door is closed. It means believing the data even when people argue with feelings.
When I left India for Carnegie Mellon, I had maybe two hundred dollars. America gave me an education and a platform. The least I can do is send something meaningful back.
AI for social good is not a contradiction. The same techniques that power consumer apps can be turned toward health, agriculture, and education in the developing world.
Philanthropy is not charity. It is investment in human capital at scale. If we do not create jobs and skills, no amount of aid fixes the problem.
Giving money away is harder than making it. You have to be as rigorous about impact as you are about returns.
We fund institutions, not programs. Programs end. Institutions endure. If we are serious about systems change, we must be willing to build the organizations that will outlast us.
Arghyam's work on water is ultimately about dignity — the dignity of not having to walk four kilometers for drinking water, the dignity of a girl who can stay in school because her school has a toilet.
Wealth is a temporary custodianship. We are stewards, not owners. The Giving Pledge is simply an acknowledgment of that fact.
Open-source infrastructure for public goods may be the highest return on philanthropic capital we can achieve. When the government adopts what you build, your investment multiplies a thousandfold.
The job of philanthropy is to strengthen civil society so that the market and the state do not crowd out the spaces where ordinary people live their lives.
I visit every project we fund. I do not trust reports. I trust what I can see with my own eyes and touch with my own hands.
My parents came here with nothing after the war. Everything we have built is because of this country and what it made possible for our family.
I got lucky. I built something people needed. The least I can do is use that luck for something useful.
Nerd values are the new normal — hard work, honesty, and giving back.
I had enough money to be comfortable. The question was: what do I do with the rest?
Journalism is the immune system of democracy. And right now it's sick.
Art is one of the few investments where the value isn't just financial. The return is also measured in what it means to the community that experiences it.
Success and sustainability are not opposites. We can grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time. We just have to be serious about trying.
The obligation that comes with this kind of success is real. We have to use our scale for good, not just for profit.
Wealth is a tool. The question is whether you pick it up and use it, or let it just sit there.
I have been given much. The obligation to give back is not something I debate.
The best thing you can do with money is make sure the next generation does not need as much of it.
Give back. That is the only obligation that comes with this kind of success. Everything else is a choice.
We have always known that our lives have been blessed by God beyond anything we deserved. As custodians of what He has provided, we are called to share our resources with those around us who lack the same resources.
Jan and I are faith-driven in our philanthropy, and our foundation serves God by serving others.
Never forget the source of the water you drink from.
I believe in a kind and generous United States, where the hungry are fed, the sick are cared for, and the homeless are sheltered.
I believe that the study of the core institutions, ideas, and traditions of Western civilization is essential and valuable, and ought to be an integral part of education at Yale.
The university's reluctance to enter into such an agreement led to our mutual decision that the gift should be returned.
Hedge funds can do so much more than just raise money. We can harness the skills and expertise we use every day to fundamentally enhance the way charities operate.
The most valuable asset that my industry can bring to society is not philanthropic funding, however necessary, but the very expertise that allowed us to generate those funds.
What Zoe and I have been very much focused on is making sure the money goes to those projects and charities who have a model which is proven, where there are going to be multipliers accrued from the donations.