Silicon Valley billionaire John Doer is donating $1.1 billion to Stanford University, a record donation to the university. That will be use to build schools for sustainability and Doerr’s ongoing commitment to fighting climate change, he said at Stanford Wednesday.
Along with another $590 million from other donors, including billionaire Yahoo! Co-founders Jerry Young also David Philo, a gift from Doerr – the chairman of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Also his wife Anne will allow the university to open the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability this fall, the university said.
The donation surpasses Stanford’s previous record of two $400 million gifts from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and the Hewlett Foundation.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education tracker, it is the second-largest for the university. After just $1.8 billion from former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg to Johns Hopkins University in 2018.
$11.1 billion. According to Forbes, that’s what Doyer is worth, making him the 175th richest person in the world thanks to Kleiner Perkins’ early investments in Google. Amazon, Slack, also other Silicon Valley successes.
The Doer Foundation is working with the Al Gore-based Climate Reality Project. Which studies climate change, and Doer published a book last year outlining his thoughts on tackling the climate crisis. Last year, Doer told Forbes he believed the Earth was “on the verge of disaster” because of global warming. And said figuring out how to stop climate change was “the biggest economic opportunity of our lives.”
“I don’t see how a billion dollars for a rich university can move the needle on this issue in the short term. Philanthropy analyst David Callahan told The New York Times, which first reported on Doerr’s donation. Callahan said the gift was a “good” gesture but suggest Doerr’s money could be better spent making people care more about climate change.