As co-founder and executive chairman of Netflix, Reed Hastings made his fortune entertaining people. He and wife Patty Quillin focus their philanthropy, though, on educating them.
In the largest single donation by any U.S. philanthropist last year, the couple gave 2 million shares of the streaming company—worth about $1.1 billion in January 2024—to their education-focused Hastings Fund, a donor-advised fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The gift comprised about 40% of Hastings’ Netflix stock, and will extend the reach of the Hastings Fund, which has previously donated more than $150 million to historically Black universities Morehouse and Spelman colleges and the United Negro College Fund, in addition to gifts to the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley.
Hastings and Quillen have continued their super-sized education donations this year. In March, Hastings, who taught high school math as a Peace Corps volunteer and later served as president of the California State Board of Education, gave $50 million to his alma mater, Bowdoin College, to create a research initiative on the risks and consequences of AI. — Alana Semuels
*Disclosure: TIME's owners and co-chairs Marc and Lynne Benioff have supported the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.