Gates’s Rich Pals Donate $30 Million for School Gift Honoring Him

Microsoft Corp., several of its former and current executives, and Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos are among those donating more than $30 million to the University of Washington in Seattle to name a computer-science building after philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates.

The building named for the Microsoft co-founder – the world’s richest person – and his wife will sit across the street from the one named for Gates’s Microsoft partner, Paul Allen. Melinda Gates, a former Microsoft manager, co-founded the couple’s foundation and is active in issues from health to birth control access. The campus is broadening its computer-science program to keep up with demand, and is spending $110 million on the new 135,000-square-foot building, UW said Thursday in a statement.