Thomas Edison: The World’s Most Famous Thief. A staggering amount of his work was stolen from other inventors. Edison once offered Tesla $50,000 (more than $1,000,000 in today’s money) if Tesla could improve one of Edison's inefficient devices, which Tesla was able to do extremely well. Edison then refused to pay up for Tesla's hard work (which would surely save Edison more than $50,000). Edison instead said, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.”
For example:
Ranking the most philanthropic people across the country, Forbes singled out the Gates couple, who donated $2.65 billion last year toward fighting disease and reforming education, among other initiatives. One notable gift cited by Forbes was $50 million dollars given by the pair to the International Aids Vaccine Initiative. Over their lifetime, the two have given out $30.2 billion, about 37 percent of their net worth.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/366317/remembering-mandela-without-rose-co
lored-glasses-andrew-c-mccarthy#!