Betty Moore, Silicon Valley philanthropist and wife of Intel founder Gordon Moore, dies at 95
Betty Moore, a Silicon Valley philanthropist who championed health care and environmental causes, died Tuesday, just 81/2 months after the death of her husband, the Intel co-founder and tech legend Gordon Moore. She was 95.
Through the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the couple used their astronomical wealth to donate more than $5 billion to scientific research, patient care and environmental conservation in the Bay Area and across the country.
“It's good to give back to society if it's at all possible,” Betty said in a short documentary about the couple. “And I also just feel that we have been very lucky in our lives.”
She was remembered this past week for supporting pioneering advancements across scientific disciplines and helping launch health care programs at UC San Francisco, UC Davis and Stanford Medicine.
“Betty's profound leadership and influence on health care practices will continue to make a difference on our campus and beyond,” UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood said in a statement. “She and Gordon helped revolutionize health care as we know it today.”
Gordon Moore, the pioneering Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind “Moore's law,” which describes the inevitable advances from microchip technology, died in March at 94.
His wife of more than seven decades, Betty Irene Moore, was born on Jan. 9, 1928, and grew up on her family's fruit ranch in Los Gatos. She attended Los Gatos High School and developed a love of the outdoors while working on the ranch when Silicon Valley was still a primarily agri