Even better, Amazon gives some of that money to charities! Thanks to their "Gift Wrap Your Holidays with a Smile" program, Amazon will donate between 60 and 75 cents per item to a nonprofit organization.

There's a catch, though: your nonprofit has to send volunteers to Amazon to do the gift wrapping! For up to ten hours at a time, while standing up.

Wow, that's a pretty good deal for Jeff Bezos. Charge between $2.99 and $5.99 for gift wrapping, and only pay labor 60 to 75 cents — and do it all in the name of charity! As our tipster says, "Amazon Xmas Fund-Raiser Does Ebenezer Proud."

Press Release [BusinessWire]

Rising Sun, the 138-meter yacht: over $200 million

BMW Oracle yacht racing: unknown sum

Atherton estate: $25 million

Woodside estate: $200 million

Twelve properties in Malibu: over $180 million

Gulfstream V: $38-46 million

Harvard University donation: zip

Wealth of experience [IT Weekly]

• YouTube, the biggest independent Web 2.0 firm that needs a lucrative deal like a hooker needs a free clinic, wins distribution of NBC shows. After NBC's SNL clip "Lazy Sunday" went viral on YouTube (and got yanked), the network finally realized that its viewers all moved to the Internet. [Washington Post]
• Geez, is any microindustry safe from invasion of the do-gooders? [GoodSearch]
• If you're building your social network around rare sneakers, you really need to flip down your collar, put the Wes Anderson DVDs back in their cases, and listen to Prince for a while. [Sneakerplay]

Summers, of course, was pushed out of Harvard after he implied that girls aren't good at math and science.

"It's official," said Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne. "The reason is the relationship he had with Larry Summers who leaves this week. Larry Summers was the brainchild of this whole concept. With his departure, Larry reconsidered his decision."

Disregarding Mr. Wynne's word choice (surely brainchild is not the word he wants), this would make a fine excuse. Except that Ellison didn't bother mentioning his change of heart when Summers resigned in March, instead waiting until last week's media frenzy forced his hand.

Hey, when Larry Ellison is running late, time had better slow the hell down.

Ellison reneges on $115 million donation to Harvard [SFGate]
Earlier: Perks of being Ellison: Saying "fuck you" with a safari [Valleywag]

• Apple's iPod maker says the sweatshop story isn't true, and they've vaguely threatened a lawsuit over the claim, made by the UK's Daily Mail. Can we resolve this peacefully so the slaves can crank out more toys? [Apple Insider]
• Props to Gnomedex organizer Chris Pirillo for designing conference tees that we'd pay good cash for (pictured). [Pirillo.com]
• I was utterly remiss not to show you this classic 1998 rant about writing for Wired Magazine. [Boing Boing]
• The "Coolz0r" blog has so far catalogued 54 services using "Flickr"-style names. If anyone wants to use this as a hitlist, the blogger will not be held responsible. [Coolz0r]
• AOL knew it was shady back in 2000. Then again, so did everyone else. [CNNMoney]
• Larry Ellison officially admits — it's not about the sick kids, it's about his buddy at Harvard. Those expecting the Oracle founder's $115 million donation can suck it. More on this tomorrow. [SFGate]

Oracle investors sued Larry Ellison after he dumped $900 million in Oracle stock just before shares tanked. Larry scored a sweet settlement — just a promise to donate $100 million to charity. And now he's paid part of that.

But Larry's other beneficiary isn't so lucky. Harvard's still missing a promised $115 million from Larry — and he's given them a big "fuck you" by avoiding them since November. At one point, says the Boston Herald, Larry's people told Harvard he was away on safari.

Don't worry about those investors — Larry will pay that hundred mil. The problem is, Harvard never snagged a written promise from Larry. What was that quote about a verbal agreement?

Ellison settles suit with $100M gift but leaves Harvard hanging [Mercury News]
'He's away on safari' - Oracle chief's $115M never gets to Harvard [Boston Herald]

I saw your items: "Internet Millionaires to African AIDS Babies: Drop dead!" and "Larry Ellison doesn't care about sick people" and recalled my fund raising attempts among Silicon Valley leaders and VC's who use "Benjamins" for toilet paper.

My wife is a seven year breast cancer survivor and a road cyclist. Over the last three years, she and I have manged to raise about $30,000 for the Lance Armastrong Foundation (LAF).

We are not displeased with that total, and money I have made off of stock options originating in Silicon Valley have allowed us to donate about $21,000 of that total our of our own resources.

We believe in putting our money where our mouths and beliefs are. We are a middle class married couple here in Boulder, CO who 'lucked into' some financial windfalls which were very large in our view (but probably would not cover the money Larry Page makes in Google stock, in the time required to blow his nose).

The "odd" thing is, I have been making "matching donation challenges" over the last three years to leaders of certain high tech companies and venture capitalist (all of whom were directly or indirectly my employers at the time of the challenges).

I wasn't just asking for a handout to the LAF, I was going to match EACH of their donations, with one of my own, up to about a limit of $10,000 each year.

I only ever generated TWO responses (and got those only after a fair amount of badgering and one letter which bordered on "Two O'clock in the morning Jerry Lewis Telethon begging") and a total of $2000 in donations in three years of trying.

Given what I said before, we have ended up matching such funds on a 10 to 1 ratio.

The people in question are leaders in HUGE technology companies and worth multiple millions of dollars, yet they 'throw around nickels like they were manhole covers'.

So the results Curt Hopkins got do not surprise me in the least.

"The rich are different than you and me" — F. Scott Fitzgerald

cheers,

michael birdsong

Curt is raising money for an African AIDS awareness program, and so far, every Valley notable that he solicited (except for Odeo's Evan Williams) ignored his e-mail for two weeks. But, says Curt, someone showed the list of non-responders to Hot or Not co-founder James Hong (#15 on the list).

James (pictured) wrote Curt to explain that he plans his charitable donations through 10 over 100, which James founded. Members pledge to give 10% of their yearly income over $100,000 to charity. So cheers to James, and boo to the rest of you — especially Denton.

Earlier: Internet Millionaires to African AIDS Babies: Drop dead! [Valleywag]
10 over 100 [Official site]

But from all but Blogger co-founder Evan Williams, Curt didn't get so much as a "screw you." Not all of the non-responders are worth millions, but one suspects they're all better off than the average Central African farmer.

Decent People
Evan Williams (Blogger, Odeo)

People Who Would Rather Buy a Fourth Lexus Than Give a Dime to Keep African AIDS Babies From Going Tits Up
Chris Anderson (Wired)
Ted Leonsis (AOL)
Steve Scott Johnson (Ookles, Feedster)
Craig Newmark (Craigslist)
Craig Mundie (Microsoft)
Esther Dyson (I have no idea)
Joi Ito (goes to lots of Blogger conferences, other than that...visits diaper hookers in Kabukicho?)
Michael Arrington (Techcrunch)
Steve Wozniak (Apple)
Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media)
Kevin Kelly (Wired)
Jason Calacanis (Weblogsinc/AOL)
Nick Denton (Gawker)
James Hong (Hot or Not)
Max Levchin (Slide, Paypal)

The Blogswana Project [Official site]
Donation page [Blogswana Project]