Cornell Lands $371.5 Million From Billionaire Alumnus David Duffield

The billionaire software entrepreneur David Duffield pledged $371.5 million to Cornell University, his alma mater, to establish two endowments within the School of Electrical and Computing Engineering, which has been renamed the Cornell David A. Duffield College of Engineering. The endowments, Duffield Legacy Fund and the Duffield Launch Fund, will be used to support an array of education and research programs in quantum engineering, artificial intelligence, and other fields. They will also support updates to the college’s physical infrastructure and a range of other engineering school needs and programs.

Duffield co-founded PeopleSoft and Workday, two human resources software companies headquartered in Pleasanton, Calif. He also founded the software companies Integral Systems, Business Software Corporation, Information Associates, and Ridgeline, the last of which serves investment-management businesses. Duffield, whose net worth Forbes pegs at around $11 billion, earned a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from the university in 1962 and 1964.

He has given extensively to his alma mater, including a $100 million donation last year to expand Duffield Hall, an engineering building, and a $20 million donation in 1997 that named the building. With this latest gift, Duffield has pledged and given a total of $550 million to Cornell. 

Duffield is also a longtime supporter of animal welfare programs through Maddie’s Fund, a nonprofit he and his wife, Cheryl, established in the 1990s to end animal shelters’ practice of euthanizing adoptable dogs and cats. The couple have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors three times.

Other Recent Big Gifts

University of California at Davis

Retired financier Sanford Weill and his wife, Joan, gave $120 million through their Weill Family Foundation to support the newly named Joan and Sanford I. Weill School of Veterinary Medicine. Of the total, $80 million will be used to help build a small-animal teaching hospital, and $40 million will go toward programs focused on diseases that affect both animals and humans. 

Sanford Weill served as CEO and chairman of the banking giant Citigroup for nearly two decades and is a member of the UC Davis Chancellor’s Board of Advisors. The couple have given extensively to higher education and health care and have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors eight times since 2001.

Chabad of California 

Alon and Monique Abady gave a Los Angeles office complex valued at an estimated $103 million. It will become the Chabad Campus for Jewish Life and will house a synagogue, space for programs serving youths and seniors, mental-health and social services, spaces for events and meetings, and programs for Jewish college students. 

Alon Abady founded the Abady Holdings Corporation, a real estate development firm in Beverly Hills, Calif. His family immigrated to the United States from Syria in 1970, and he credits the Jewish charity with helping his family when they were immigrants with little money and few community connections. 

University of Texas at Austin 

Tench and Simone Coxe gave $100 million to establish a new medical center that will integrate the work of the university’s research programs, its Dell Medical School, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s treatment programs in Central Texas. 

Tench Coxe is a billionaire and the third largest individual shareholder  of Nvidia, which designs the chips that power AI.  He has served on the Board of Directors since 1993. He is a former managing director of the venture capital firm Sutter Hill Ventures, where he worked for nearly 30 years. Simone Coxe founded a public relations firm she later sold.

State University of New York at Binghamton

Thomas Secunda pledged $30 million to establish the Center for AI Responsibility and Research. It will be part of the Empire AI Consortium, an effort to develop and promote responsible AI tools to create jobs and improve the lives of New York State residents. 

Secunda co-founded Bloomberg L.P. and was involved in the creation of the Bloomberg Terminal, a technology platform that provides finance professionals with news, data, and analytics. He earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the university in 1976 and 1979. 

University of Pittsburgh 

Orland Bethel and his family pledged $53.5 million through his Orland Bethel Family Foundation to expand the Orland Bethel Family Musculoskeletal Research Center. Bethel helped launch the center when he gave the university $25 million in 2023. Bethel founded Hillandale Farms, a Greensburg, Pa., chicken eggs supplier, in 1958.

Council on Foreign Relations 

Edgar and Sue Wachenheim pledged $50 million through their Sue and Edgar Wachenheim Foundation to establish and endow the Wachenheim Center for Peace and Security. It will house the organization’s many international conflict prevention and resolution programs. Edgar Wachenheim founded Greenhaven Associates, a Harrison, N.Y., investment firm, in 1987.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.