Joel Spolsky (left) and Jeff Atwood (right) present at MIX09 in 2009.”>
The Giving Pledge, a charitable campaign co-founded by Warren Buffett that urges ultra-rich individuals to donate 99.9 percent of their wealth to charity in their lifetimes, has become a popular framework amongst wealthy donors. But for the tech entrepreneur Jeff Atwood, it is missing a key component. “When would this wealth be transferred?” asked Atwood in a blog post published on Jan. 7. “I admire Buffett,” he added, but “to me this pledge was incomplete.”
Atwood, 55, the co-founder of the coding Q&A site Stack Exchange and the discussion platform Discourse, is putting his own spin on the Giving Pledge by promising to give away half of his fortune within the next five years. And he’s hitting the ground running. The software developer has already given eight separate $1 million donations to organizations including Team Rubicon, a disaster response group; PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for writers; and the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ young people.
“This example of trust-based philanthropy enables us to assist communities at a moment’s notice,” said Art delaCruz, CEO of Team Rubicon, in a statement to Observer. Maayan Dauber, PEN America’s chief development officer, described Atwood’s donation as one that will “strengthen our work in the U.S. to make sure writers can continue to find audiences for works that bring meaning to our lives,” in a statement to Observer.
Saving the American Dream
Underpinning Atwood’s philanthropic goals is a desire to combat rising inequality across the U.S. “The costs of housing, health care and education have soared far beyond the pace of inflation and wage growth,” Atwood said in his recent blog post, pointing to the disproportionate wealth accumulated by the world’s richest 1 percent, which accumulated 63 percent of all new wealth between 2020 and 2022.
Atwood, who came from humble beginnings in Virginia and is now based in Alameda, Calif., reportedly made around $100 million from the 2021 sale of Stack Overflow, a programmer-focused website contained by Stack Exchange. But instead of passing down the bulk of this wealth to his children, whom he said will be given enough funds to afford university and buy homes, Atwood wants to allocate his fortune to bolster enhanced “access to the American dream.”
His pledge was partially inspired by the recent presidential election, according to Atwood, who highlighted historically high levels of political polarization and the 42 percent of Americans who did not or were unable to vote. “Our status as the world’s leading democracy is in question,” he said.
While Atwood has declined to specify the exact amount he intends to donate, his initial round of gifts is just the beginning. By 2030, he hopes to have invested in longer-term efforts that prioritize the protection of democratic institutions and make it easier for Americans to vote, in addition to potentially founding an organization that takes inspiration from the nonprofit RAND Corporation or Lever for Change, an organization that helps donors with funding opportunities.
“It is now time to allocate half the wealth I was so fortunate to be dealt within the next five years, not just for my own family, but for all my fellow Americans,” he said.
