By Chris V. Thangham.
Jerry Yang, Yahoo Co-Founder, donates $75 Million Dollars to Stanford University, California.
Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang will donate $75 million to Stanford University, his alma mater and the place where he and another fellow student began working on a directory of Web sites that went on to become one of the Internet's first big success stories.
Jerry Young, Yahoo co-founder who graduated from Stanford like other greats Tiger Woods, Fellow Co-founder David Filo, is returning the favor to Stanford in a big way. He and his wife Akiki Yamazaki, who he met in 1992 when they were studying in Stanford, are donating $75 Million Dollars to Stanford University. Out of which Stanford said $50 million of the donation will be used to cover the costs of a new environmental studies center scheduled to be completed in December. Another $5 million will help fund a 120,000-square-foot center for training doctors. The university hasn't decided what to do with the rest of the donation yet.
Both Jerry Young and his wife graduated from Stanford in 1990. This is not the first time they have donated to Stanford, they have contributed many over the years.
While pursuing a doctorate in electrical engineering at Stanford, Yang teamed up with David Filo in 1994 to begin compiling a list of their favorite Web sites as a diversion from their studies.
When it became popular, Yang and Filo converted into a business in March 1995 and took it to public and became instant billionaires during the dot-com period, whereInternet companies became instantly popular and high value.
Yang's wealth in Sunnyvale-based Yahoo is currently worth about $1.8 billion.
That is a generous donation by Yang, Stanford will put that in good use no doubt. I hope Yang does the same for other schools and colleges also.
