Bill Gates away half of its value, as detailed in "The Power of Half". Gates and his wife invited Joan Salwen to Seattle to speak about what the family had done, and on December 9, 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates, and investor Warren Buffett signed a commitment they called the "Giving Pledge." The pledge is a commitment by all three to donate at least half of their wealth over the course of time to charity. Gates has also provided personal donations to educational institutions. In 1999, Gates donated $20 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the construction of a
Bill Gates Sr. Bill Gates Sr. William Henry Gates II (born November 30, 1925), better known as Bill Gates Sr., is an American retired attorney and philanthropist and author of the book "Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime". He is the father of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. One of a line of businessmen named William H. Gates, and sometimes called William Gates Jr. in his career, he is now generally known as William Henry Gates Sr. due to the greater prominence of his son William H. Gates III (Bill Gates). Gates was born in 1925 in Bremerton, Washington,