Software Entrepreneur Seeks to Promote Excellence Through Philanthropy

Charles Simonyi, who made a fortune developing word-processing and spreadsheet software that

could be used by people who were not computer experts, brings a similar sense of democratic mission to his philanthropy.

The chief architect of Microsoft Word and other popular software programs, Mr. Simonyi believes in supporting what he calls “access to excellence” in areas near to his heart — the arts, sciences, and education. But he wants to know all about people and their organizations before he gives them money, to assure himself that they meet his high standards. As a result, he typically finds himself engaged with the organizations he supports, often befriending their leaders, and sometimes even sitting on their boards.

“I feel very strongly that you want to be involved” with an organization in a way that goes beyond simply writing a check, says Mr. Simonyi, who Forbes magazine estimates is worth around $1-billion. “Certainly, before you make the commitment, you want to really understand the organization. Typically, I become close friends with the principals.”

Mr. Simonyi, 55, is a trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J., for example, where he endowed a chair in theoretical physics that is currently occupied by Edward Witten, one of the seminal thinkers behind string theory. And he counts among his friends the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who holds the Charles Simonyi Professorship for the Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

Last year Mr. Simonyi decided to consolidate his giving within a new organization, the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, to which he committed $47-million.

“I have been doing philanthropy for quite a few years, but it just came to a point where creating an organization was the right way to organize those activities,” says Mr. Simonyi, speaking by cell phone last week during a visit to his native Hungary.

Much of Mr. Simonyi’s giving to date has been to Seattle-area institutions, including the Seattle Art Museum, the Seattle Opera, and the University of Washington’s computer-science program, though he says he expects future gifts to go to groups elsewhere in the United States and even abroad.

The foundation recently announced its first gift: $10-million to the Seattle Symphony. Half of the money will go into the orchestra’s endowment and half into its operating fund, enabling it to attract and retain musicians by giving them raises as prescribed by their current contract. A portion will also be used to stage a “New Europe Festival” during the symphony’s 2005-6 season, focusing on the music of Central and Eastern Europe.

“Charles is a great music lover,” says Gerard Schwarz, the orchestra’s musical director. “He’s come to many concerts over the years, where he often sits with my wife, Jodie. We also share an interest in fine food and wine. He’s an extremely charming and sophisticated human being.”

Mr. Simonyi, an avid fan of classical music, also collects modern art, including works by the Hungarian Op artist Victor Vasarely, who died in 1997. He speaks six languages and is a licensed pilot.

With so many interests to explore, Mr. Simonyi has no plans to set up a permanent philanthropy. He says he expects that his foundation will spend at least 10 percent of its assets every year, and will likely exhaust its initial endowment in a decade.

“I don’t consider this the limit of my lifetime philanthropy,” he observes. “I’m working very hard on creating new wealth, which hopefully I can also give away.”

Emigrated as a Teenager

Mr. Simonyi came to the United States as a teenager, attended the University of California at Berkeley, and earned a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University. He worked for the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s, but left in 1981 to join a small software company called Microsoft. Mr. Simonyi managed the teams that developed Word, Excel, and other popular applications before moving in 1991 to Microsoft Research to work on a novel approach to software called “intentional programming.”

He left Microsoft last year to found his own company, Intentional Software Corporation, in Bellevue, Wash., to try to further develop his ideas for improving computing productivity. The goal is to simplify programming by designing software that mimics the way people actually communicate, rather than having to reduce all instructions to binary code.

Mr. Simonyi attributes the suggestion that he establish his own foundation to Susan Hutchison, whom he subsequently lured away from her job as anchorwoman at KIRO-TV in Seattle to be the foundation’s executive director.

“Charles exemplifies the American dream,” says Ms. Hutchison. “His colleagues at Xerox thought he was crazy to leave it for a little startup company, but he saw it as the kind of place he could do his best.”

The foundation, too, reflects a clear vision but requires a similar leap of faith. “It’s a learning experience for both of us,” Ms. Hutchison says, adding that the money so far may be just a start. “We’ll see where it goes from there.”