Young tech billionaires gave generously in 2013. Of the 50 top philanthropists compiled by the Chronicle Of Philanthropy, only 4 were under the age of 50 and 3 of those were in the tech industry: Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan (Facebook, $992M), Pierre and Pam Omidyar (Ebay, $225M) and Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki (Google, $219M).
The one non-techie philanthropist joining their youthful brethren are John and Laura Arnold, who made their billion in finance.
Zuckerberg, who led the pack with nearly a billion in charitable donations, is most remembered for his $100M gift to Newark’s public schools and, more recently, nearly a billion dollars in Facebook stock given to The Silicon Valley foundation.
Technology IPOs have been churning out an impressive number of millionaires, many of them quite young. Twitter’s recent IPO, alone, created roughly 1,600 new millionaires. Facebook, too, created around 1,000 millionaires and billionaires, including the fresh-faced co-founders who boostrapped the site in Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room.
Notably absent from The Chronicle Of Philanthropy‘s list are super-philanthropists Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who had pledged barrels of cash in previous years.
Both Zuckerberg and eBay founder Pierre Omydiar have also invested heavily in political organizations. Zuckerberg gave roughly $50 million to his immigration-focused political lobby, FWD.us. Omydiar is giving $250 million to a new civil liberties-oriented news organization, which just launched its first publication, The Intercept, last night.
See the full list here.