Last June, on a warm cloudy day in Palo Alto, Dustin Moskovitz quietly donated the equivalent of a major legacy funder’s entire endowment to Good Ventures, the foundation that he runs with his wife, Cari Tuna — the latest loud demonstration of billionaires reshaping the philanthropic landscape in this New Gilded Age.
The 40-year-old’s $1.9 billion gift last year was the financial equivalent of Good Ventures swallowing the entire assets of, say, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation or the Heinz Endowments, two philanthropies launched during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and which rank, at least for now, among the 100 richest foundations in the country.
For the couple, a Facebook cofounder and a former Wall Street Journal reporter, respectively, it’s another step toward their long-stated intention to donate nearly all of their wealth during their lifetimes. The pair have made some progress, even if they still have some distance to go. Moskovitz’s reported roughly $17 billion fortune still dwarfs the foundation’s assets, which recently totaled $5.9 billion.
For philanthropy, the contribution is another reminder that a new generation of ultra-wealthy Americans are overtaking yesteryear’s giants — and that tech donors are already coming to dominate the philanthropic landscape. Good Ventures is now among the top 20 largest foundations in the country, close on the heels of another storied philanthropy from another century, the Rockefeller Foundation.
Moskovitz and Tuna also offer a powerful philanthropic example to other entrants on the Forbes billionaires list, not to mention legions of other young but not-quite-so-fortunate tech entrepreneurs. The Sobratos, for example, cite them as influences.
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are and likely will remain far more prominent donors, thanks to their vastly greater wealth. Yet their lesser-known peers are truly walking the talk; Moskovitz and Tuna have transferred a far greater share of their wealth to philanthropy. The latter now even have a larger foundation, with this latest donation bumping Good Ventures’ assets above those of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Foundation.
This donation also comes to light less than a year since cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s conviction on fraud charges, which left the future of effective altruism uncertain. For those still in doubt, the contribution is proof positive, as my colleague Philip Rojc wrote last December, that the movement “isn’t going anywhere.” Moskovitz and Tuna were effective altruism’s biggest and best-known backers before Bankman-Fried, and are once again.
As Moskovitz and Tuna continue to pump billions of dollars into their philanthropy, here’s a quick primer on how they give, and what the latest at Good Ventures might signal about their role as donors — and the future of the philanthrosphere.
Giving to make a difference — and convince others
Good Ventures is not your typical megadonor foundation. Tuna is president, but it has no full-time staff. Instead, it functions like a trust that grants based on the recommendations of two other organizations, both pillars of the effective altruism community: Open Philanthropy and GiveWell.
That said, the connections between this group are tight, particularly with Open Philanthropy. Originally a partnership between Good Ventures and GiveWell, Open Philanthropy spun out in 2017. Cari Tuna has been its president since inception, and the couple are its main funders. Tuna sits on the GiveWell board, too.
In short, the couple have structured their philanthropy with an eye toward not only inspiring the giving of others, but guiding those choices. (An aim shared, incidentally, by many effective altruists.) That makes them especially critical donors to watch — and one reason we rated Tuna as one of the 50 most powerful women in U.S. philanthropy.
Saving lives, but also building a movement
The bulk of Good Ventures’ largest awards go to focused, evidence-based public health interventions or preparation for catastrophic threats — two categories wildly popular with effective altruists. Examples from the last five years include $67 million to Helen Keller International for a Vitamin A supplementation, $61 million to the Malaria Consortium, and $39 million to Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
The couple’s foundation also helped directly build the movement for which they are the leading billionaire backers. Good Ventures has made general support grants of $26 million to the Center for Effective Altruism and $11 million to the Effective Ventures Foundation over the last few years.
Last year’s $1.9 billion contribution will not force Good Ventures to increase what is an already high payout rate. The foundation’s payout spiked several years ago, rising from $167 million to $342 million between its 2021 and 2022 fiscal years.
Incidentally, later in 2022, after the collapse of SBF’s cryptocurrency empire, Moskovitz wrote on Twitter that he aimed to “repair the damage Sam did.” Good Ventures’ grantmaking actually fell slightly in its next fiscal year, to $321 million, though that was still well above the foundation’s required 5% minimum.
A sign of a changing philanthropic guard
For Good Ventures, last year’s mega donation is a step toward its founders’ long-term goal of giving it all away. But don’t expect any visible changes. “It doesn’t represent any material change in their giving strategy, or in how Good Ventures will operate,” said a foundation spokesperson.
For the rest of us, it’s a preview of what’s to come. The rich are getting richer, the Great Wealth Transfer is underway and every year, more billionaires sign the Giving Pledge. (Moskovitz and Tuna joined in the pledge’s first year.) If even a portion of those signatories follow through on their promises, we will see a lot more such outsized commitments in the years ahead. And the clock is ticking: One study found the average age at the time of joining the pledge was 63.
Tech fortunes are likely to figure prominently in this changing of the guard. There are more billionaires from tech than any other industry on the Forbes list, their numbers have grown since last year, and their fortunes are rising faster than any other sector.
These masters of bits and bytes — along with their partners and children — will shape the philanthropic institutions of tomorrow. The flagship example is Bill Gates (and, until recently, Melinda French Gates), who, with help from Warren Buffet, has made the Gates Foundation the country’s largest philanthropy, thanks to massive contributions like the $20 billion Gates contributed in 2022.
But there’s also a fast-rising class of newer mega-philanthropies with roots in Silicon Valley, including the foundations of Elon Musk, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Eric and Wendy Schmidt. They join a handful of legacy giants established by an earlier generation of tech titans, like William Hewlett, David Packard and Gordon Moore — though those operations may end up seeming quaint next to what the centibillionaires of today leave behind. Indeed, the coming flood of philanthropic cash may shift the foundation landscape in ways we can hardly predict.
