If you’re reading this on a computer, and chances are good that you are, you have Gordon Moore in large part to thank for it. Moore, who passed away last week at the age of 94, was among the pioneering group of mid-20th-century engineers and entrepreneurs who created the microchip. In 1968, Moore and colleagues founded Intel Corp., which developed the first microprocessor brains for the small computers that have since shaped so many aspects of contemporary life and work.
But if Moore helped transform society through his work in the technology industry, his impact continues through his philanthropy. In 2000, Moore and his wife established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, with science and scientific methodology as a pillar of the foundation’s work — a reflection of Gordon Moore’s professional background, in particular. An early signatory of the Giving Pledge, Moore’s philanthropy is emblematic of a kind of big, institutional approach that, while bold, has come to be thought of as somewhat traditional in a rapidly changing sector. The Moores launched their foundation at retirement age and built up an organization that relies on a substantial, expert staff, driving targeted program areas and an emphasis on measurable results. With an impressive track record on everything from forest conservation to support for basic science investigators, it’s also an example of the kind of impact this strategic approach can have.
In 2015, the couple drafted a “Statement of Founders’ Intent” to provide guidance in their eventual absence, and signaling that this should be the foundation’s philosophy long into the future: “We want the foundation to tackle large, important issues at a scale where it can achieve significant and measurable impacts. … Betty and I believe that science and the type of rigorous inquiry that guides science are keys to achieving the outcomes we want. Scientific methodology should be a cornerstone of nearly all of the foundation’s efforts.”
The $9.5 billion foundation supports science, conservation, patient care and causes in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the largest grantmakers in science philanthropy, supporting research in biology, physics, telescopes for astronomical research, and other special projects. Since its creation, the Moore Foundation has donated more than $5.1 billion to charitable causes, placing it alongside peers such as the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Simons Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Meanwhile, the Moores have been huge supporters of Caltech, where Gordon earned his doctorate.
Spearheaded by Betty Moore, they also notably zeroed in on the topic of patient care, an often-neglected aspect of healthcare philanthropy among big science funders, which tend to focus on laboratory research. New research is vital, of course, but when it comes to making a measurable difference in the health of real people struggling with sickness — and “measurable” is an important guideline for Moore philanthropy — the focus on patient care was a canny insight. It was also no doubt behind the Moores’ $100 million commitment to launch the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at University of California, Davis, the nation’s largest grant for nursing education.
Moore, a native Californian and avid outdoorsman, made environmental conservation one of the foundation’s key interests. In the Statement of Founders’ Intent, they write of their interest in environmental conservation: “During our lifetimes we have observed the transformation of much of what was natural wilderness to highly developed property. With these changes, precious ecosystem functions are lost, often forever.”
The foundation, they wrote, should seek “pragmatic solutions” to maintain the integrity of essential ecosystems while accommodating development. The Moore Foundation has made nearly $2 billion in grants supporting work around the world in such areas as marine conservation, natural ecosystems, the food and agriculture industry, protecting the Amazon rainforest, and other projects. One of the foundation’s signature programs, and one of its largest and longest-running, is its Andes-Amazon Initiative. Moore has given more than $500 million in grants to protect over 400 million hectares of historic forest cover in the region. Like other large environmental funders, part of its work is focused on the role of markets in conservation, supporting sustainable industry practices.
Despite Gordon’s deep commitment to conservation of the planet’s increasingly fragile ecosystems — more than 40% of the foundation’s grantmaking goes to environmental causes — and its important work on curbing deforestation, it hasn’t directly tackled what is arguably the most pressing issue threatening conservation work today: climate change. That’s owing to the Moores’ pragmatic idea of the size and type of problems a foundation of its size can address with measurable success. As the couple wrote in their Founders’ Statement:
“(G)lobal climate change and the crisis in primary education might be two of the most important challenges of our time, and that makes it tempting to address them. However, unless the foundation can satisfy itself that it has the capacity and resources to be a significant factor in bringing about measurable, durable solutions to an important subset of these kinds of intractable problems, the foundation should forgo investment.”
Much of the Moore Foundation’s grantmaking has gone to major institutions, like the UC Davis gift that established the nursing school there. The foundation makes regular and extensive grants to the California Institute of Technology, where Gordon got his Ph.D. in chemistry and physics; in fact, the Moores have given hundreds of millions to CalTech, including a $600 million gift in 2001, $100 million in 2015 and $200 million to CalTech (and the University of California) toward construction of the Thirty-Meter Telescope in Hawaii. The couple has also given hundreds of millions to other universities, including Stanford, UC Berkeley and other UC schools.
The Moore Foundation is also a major force in the next generation of large astronomical telescopes, backing the construction of the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) on the Mauna Kea mountain top in Hawaii. When completed, the TMT will allow scientists to see 200 times farther into the universe than ever before, aiding in understanding of the history and structure of the universe and assisting in the search for signatures of life beyond our solar system.
But the TMT project also opened up the Moore Foundation to harsh criticism from Hawaiians who hold sacred the planned Mauna Kea location of the telescope. While Gordon Moore has often cited his deep sense of connection and stewardship to the land and nature of California, where his family had indeed lived for several generations, critics say the foundation went ahead with the telescope project over the objections of the Hawaiians, whose connection to the land goes back thousands of years. The TMT has been stalled due to protests over the site.
In all, its science program area has made more than $1.8 billion across some 1,200 grants in fields such as marine microbiology, data-driven research, experimental physics, and quantum materials with potential applications in new technology. The program seeks to advance basic science by backing researchers, collaboration and new technologies. Its support for data-driven techniques and materials science, in particular, reflects Gordon Moore’s legacy in computers, backing emerging areas of research that present the possibility of exponential leaps forward in tech.
So what’s in store for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation? Going forward, it seems unlikely that the foundation will alter course in a significant way. While Gordon and Betty have been integral to shaping the foundation’s direction for years now, it’s been a huge grantmaking machine run by a professional staff, with less day-to-day involvement from the founders than you might see in a Gates Foundation, for example. President Harvey Fineberg has held the position since 2014. However, Fineberg is now 77, and will presumably retire at some point within the next several years. A leadership change, whenever it comes, could lead to new grantmaking interests that reflect advances and changes within science and environmental conservation. But the strategic DNA of the foundation should remain. As the Moores wrote in their Founders’ Intent statement:
“It is our hope that if Betty or I were to return to the foundation in a decade, a century or a millennium, while the issues the foundation is working on might be different, the foundation would be recognizable to us — that it would continue to be innovative, intellectually rigorous, take risks, operate efficiently, exercise humility, and remain focused on measurable results.
Perhaps the idea that will be most indelibly connected with Gordon Moore is an observation known as “Moore’s Law”: the idea that integrated circuits double in complexity approximately every two years. It’s not really a scientific law, but it could be said to symbolize Moore’s optimism — a confidence that science and tech would continually improve and continue to solve problems that advance knowledge and the human condition.
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