Terminally-ill Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon explains why he's giving away his entire fortune

Terminally-ill Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon explains why he's giving away his entire fortune

At 25, Sam Simon was the showrunner on Taxi. At 33, he helped create The Simpsons. At 58, he was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer and given three months to live — and that's when his life's work began.

More than a year removed from that dire diagnosis, Simon is still alive and racing to give away a vast TV fortune built from a lucrative royalty setup he received from his work on The Simpsons. "I make tens of millions of dollars a year, which may not sound like a lot, but over 25 years it adds up," Simon recently quipped to Vanity Fair.

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Mike Barry

Mike Barry is the senior editor of audience development and outreach at TheWeek.com. He was previously a contributing editor at The Huffington Post. Prior to that, he was best known for interrupting a college chemistry class.