Sergey Brin gave away more than $1.1 billion worth of Alphabet Inc. stock this week, with most of the money going to a nonprofit the Google co-founder created.
The donation was disclosed Friday in a regulatory filing, which didn’t specify who had received the more than 3.5 million shares. According to a spokesperson for Brin’s family office, roughly $1 billion in stock is going to Catalyst4, which the billionaire started in 2021 with the dual purpose of supporting research into central nervous system diseases and climate-change solutions.
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Brin is also giving about $90 million to his family foundation, the spokesperson said, as well as $45 million to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which supports research into Parkinson’s disease. In May, Brin had previously doled out Alphabet shares worth $700 million to the same three charities.
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Brin owns a roughly 6% aggregate stake of [Alphabet] and has seen his fortune gain $97.3 billion this year so far.
I was already skeptical when the title didn't say who he gave the money to. I was not surprised. He basically gave it to himself to fund a pet project. I'm not saying that the pet project is a bad...
I was already skeptical when the title didn't say who he gave the money to. I was not surprised. He basically gave it to himself to fund a pet project.
I'm not saying that the pet project is a bad one. “Research into central nervous system diseases and climate-change solutions” sound like noble goals. Nevertheless, there are plenty of research organizations and non-profits for that already, so I find it very telling that billionaires still can't bring themselves to donate any significant amount of their wealth to those. They just have to stay in control of the money.
https://archive.is/QtkEl
From the article:
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I was already skeptical when the title didn't say who he gave the money to. I was not surprised. He basically gave it to himself to fund a pet project.
I'm not saying that the pet project is a bad one. “Research into central nervous system diseases and climate-change solutions” sound like noble goals. Nevertheless, there are plenty of research organizations and non-profits for that already, so I find it very telling that billionaires still can't bring themselves to donate any significant amount of their wealth to those. They just have to stay in control of the money.
Sergey Brin's mother has Parkinson's and he is at high risk to get it, so that's a self-interested goal, but still a good one.