Silicon Valley venture capitalist gifts $1.1bn to Stanford for new climate school

Louise Boyle
·1 min read
Venture capitalist John Doerr, 70, has gifted $1.1billion to Stanford University to establish a new climate and sustainability school (Creative Commons)
Venture capitalist John Doerr, 70, has gifted $1.1billion to Stanford University to establish a new climate and sustainability school (Creative Commons)

Silicon Valley billionaire John Doerr has announced a gift of $1.1billion to Stanford University in California to fund a new climate school.

The venture capitalist, who is worth an estimated $11.3 billion from his investments in companies like Google and Amazon, made the donation with his wife Ann, The New York Times first reported on Wednesday.

According to The Times, it is the largest gift to a university to create a new school - and second only to billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s donation of $1.8bn to Johns Hopkins University.

Mr Doerr, 70, is chair of Kleiner Perkins venture capital fund in Menlo Park, California which has invested in an array of wildly successful companies including Uber, Twitter, Snapchat, Spotify, Square, Nest, Aol, Netscape and Peloton.

He graduated from Rice University in Houston, Texas with degrees in electrical engineering before getting his MBA from Harvard Business School.

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