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“The word `philanthropy’ wasn’t a word that I grew up with,” says Seattle’s Scott Oki. Now he and his wife Laurie give it true meaning every day.

YOU CERTAINLY COULDN’T TELL FROM HIS OFFICE, A well-struck-kickball’s distance from the Toys ‘R’ Us store in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, Washington. The Oki Foundation resides in a former church on Main Street, which, by its modest size and appearance, presumably served a small congregation in the long-ago days when this area was covered in strawberry fields. Upon entering the no-longer-sanctified building, you are directed downstairs, where you’re greeted by the sight of Scott Oki sitting at the desk of a small, inside office (and not even the corner one at that), its door open and welcoming. He’s surrounded by wood-veneer office furniture, nearly every surface of which is covered by photos …

SPEND AN HOUR WITH STEVE PERLMAN AND YOU’LL understand why more than 600 friends turned out earlier this year for the unveiling of his new loft in downtown San Francisco. He’s a computer honcho who doesn’t twitch, rock or fall into stony trances; he can talk about technology in ways that make even the Bic-ballpoint generation relax. Funny and extremely self-possessed, the Connecticut-raised, Columbia-educated Perlman, 39, looks like your average post-teenager in a leather jacket,jeans shredding a bit around the knees. But get him started on where technology is going in the years to come, and you’ll find that he has an almost evangelical ability to get you to embrace his ideas. WebTV Networks, one of his biggest, lured venture capital from Paul Allen’s Vulcan Ventures, Hollywood mogul Marvin Davis and Bill Gates himself before being acquired outright by Microsoft …