Netscape Co-Founder Gives $150 Million to Stanford
Saying that he felt terribly indebted to Stanford for helping him become fabulously rich in the Silicon Valley, Netscape co-founder Jim Clark said Tuesday that he will donate $150 million to propel the university into the next high-tech revolution: biomedical engineering.
The gift, the largest monetary donation in Stanford’s history and fifth-largest to any American university, is designed to jump-start the Palo Alto campus in the biomedical race with other major universities.
“We are entering an era of discovery where human organisms and technology intersect,” said Clark, a restless 55-year-old entrepreneur. “Part of me would love to get in the middle of it. I seriously doubt I have the drive. So I want to make it possible for other people to do it.”
It also seems appropriate, Clark said, to share some of his $1.8-billion fortune with Stanford. After all, the university gave him the freedom as a young engineering professor to develop a 3-D silicon chip and launch his first multibillion-dollar enterprise, Silicon Graphics.
With this gift, Stanford will establish the James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, joining other universities in a gold rush to hit it big by turning biological breakthroughs into everything from designer drugs to miniature medical devices.
Scientific discoveries have become a lucrative source of income for these universities.
The University of California, for instance, earned about $88.5 million from its inventions last year. The U.S. Commerce Department announced Tuesday that the nine-campus UC system was issued 395 patents last year. Caltech was issued 93 patents and Stanford 79--all potential sources of revenue.
With the proliferation of discoveries, a growing number of professors and even graduate students have become engaged in tussles with universities over licensing agreements and royalty payments. They complain that universities want too big of a cut, sometimes crippling their chances to make their discoveries profitable.
Clark, who has a doctorate in computer science, said that wasn’t his experience at Stanford in the early 1980s.
He was an associate professor of electrical engineering at the time, designing a computer chip called the geometry engine. The chip made it possible to simulate reality on a computer screen, using 3-D graphics. It became the basis for his new company, Silicon Graphics.
He later teamed up with Marc Andreessen to launch Netscape, the Internet browser, and now heads Healtheon Corp., a virtual health care network, and myCFO Inc., an online personal finance management service.
Clark said he paid royalties on the geometry engine, but it didn’t yield the financial numbers expected. He said he hopes that his generosity will “make Stanford realize it makes sense to allow people to capitalize on their ideas.”
The $150-million gift may also give an employment boost to Stanford Provost John Hennessy, a longtime friend whom Clark said “has kept Stanford alive in my mind.” The two used to have side-by-side offices in the electrical engineering department.
Hennessy, as the No. 2 administrator on campus, is under consideration to replace Stanford President Gerhard Casper next fall when he retires.
Given how college presidents are now expected to raise big donations, it does not hurt to be good friends with the university’s biggest donor, who says it’s time for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who benefited from Stanford “to give something back.”
Hennessy dismissed such talk as premature, instead focusing on the biomedical engineering center, which already has a nickname on campus: Bio-X.
“We hope to break ground next year,” Hennessy said. The 225,000-square-foot building will be strategically located on campus between the medical school and the departments of engineering, biology and computer science.
Clark has already transferred $40 million in stock so the project can move forward. He said he will send the rest in $30 million annual installments until his pledge is fulfilled.
Ultimately, Bio-X center will hold 400 research scientists and technicians and about 50 faculty. Another 200 Stanford science and medical faculty will also use Bio-X labs for research.
Hennessy said the center will focus on “thematic areas” in the burgeoning biomedical fields, including how to build new organs, tissues and body parts and improving the interface between cells and the silicon chip.
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Largest Donations to Universities
Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jim Clark, right, will donate $150 million to help Stanford set up a new Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, placing him among the top five donors to higher education.
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Recipient Donation Year Donor 1. Vanderbilt U. $300 million 1998 Ingram Charitable Fund 2. Emory U. $295 million 1996 Lettie Pate Evans, Joseph B. Whitehead, Robert W. Woodruff Foundations 3. UC San Francisco $240 million* 1998 Larry L. Hillblom 4. Franklin W. Olin $200 million 1997 F.W. Olin Foundation College of Engineering 5. Stanford U. $150 million 1999 Jim Clark 6. Polytechnic U. $144 million 1998 Donald and Mildred Topp Othmer 7. New York U. $125 million- 1994 Sir Harold Acton $500 million** 8. Louisiana State U. $125 million 1981 Claude B. Pennington U. of Nebraska $125 million 1998 Mildred Topp Othmer
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* Up to $240 million of the estate would establish the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation, which would support medical research at the university and other charities. UC officials are not yet counting on the money because the Hillblom estate is tied up in lawsuits.
** Donation with a total estimated value of $125 million to $500 million includes an Italian estate, a collection of Renaissance art and at least $25 million in cash
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
