Reply #6: I found the story; Duffield, not Conway

[Atman]

A Parting Gift at PeopleSoft

By ROBERT JOHNSON

Published: June 12, 2005

People who start companies that eventually grow big are routinely enriched when they sell them to competitors. But it's unusual for these executives to take financial responsibility for the many workers displaced in the consolidation that follows.

David A. Duffield, the founder and former chief executive of PeopleSoft, a business software company, isn't just walking away from the thousands of workers who have been laid off since the Oracle Corporation acquired it last December after a bitter takeover battle.

Instead, he is giving grants of up to $10,000 each to many former PeopleSoft employees who lost their jobs and have had problems finding work. The grants, which have already totaled about $800,000, are made through a fund called Safety Net, which started operating on April 1. Mr. Duffield, 65, has endowed the fund with $10 million.

Dave Ogden, a former PeopleSoft manager chosen by Mr. Duffield to supervise the fund from a rented office in Walnut Creek, Calif., said recipients "are universally amazed that a former boss would reach out this way; they know he didn't have to."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/business/yourmoney/12refresh.html?