...Young Silicon Valley billionaires pioneer new approach to philanthropy

Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz: Young Silicon Valley billionaires pioneer new approach to philanthropy
By Ariana Eunjung Cha December 26


SAN FRANCISCO — When Cari Tuna and her future husband, Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder, decided they would give away most of their multibillion-dollar fortune to charity, they thought of asteroids.

Or more specifically, the risk of one slamming to Earth and causing mass destruction.

It was one of many early ideas and it wasn’t that they had any special passion for or expertise in the subject, but it wasn’t a joke either. In trying to figure out how they could make the maximum impact with their money, the couple wanted to cast as wide a net as possible and systematically evaluate every cause on its merits.

No matter how wacky or intractable a problem may seem at first glance.

“We wanted to include anything that could seriously derail humanity’s progress,” Tuna explained in a recent interview. “It’s a pretty scary list.”

Tuna and Moskovitz were in their mid-20s in 2010 when they became the youngest couple ever to sign on to the Giving Pledge, the campaign started by Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffett to encourage the world’s billionaires to commit to giving away most of their wealth.

They had little experience with philanthropy, but they believed that the bulk of the money Moskovitz had made — estimated to be $8.1 billion by Forbes — should be returned to society in their lifetimes.

The question was how.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/billionaire-couple-give-plenty-to-charity-but-they-do-quite-a-bit-of-homework/2014/12/26/19fae34c-86d6-11e4-b9b7-b8632ae73d25_story.html