10 ms·

MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, says she gave $4.2B to charity

101 points by neom 6y ago

nceqs3 6y ago
It's interesting how differently Ms. Scott's philanthropy is treated than Bezos's. When Bezos donates the headlines and tweets are very negative whereas when Scott donates they are very positive. I don't see the difference. Isn't it the same pot of money these donations are coming from (Amazon)?
- foolfoolz 6y ago
  because she donated like 10-15% of her money. what percentage does jeff donate?
  - bagacrap 6y ago
    which is still effectively nothing for her, since even 1% of her money is enough to do whatever she wants for the rest of her life. Honest question: besides charity, how can you possibly spend your wealth after it creeps past the billion or ten billion mark? Buy an archipelago?
    - TuringNYC 6y ago
      >> Honest question: besides charity, how can you possibly spend your wealth after it creeps past the billion or ten billion mark? Buy an archipelago? Buy influence, then use that influence to drive policy changes. Unfortunately it is not always used the way we want, some examples are the Koch brothers and Robert Mercer Theoretically you can use this influence to drive better climate policy, better civil rights, better social justice
      - nceqs3 6y ago
        Robert Mercer is not a billionaire btw. Ironically Jim Simons (his ex partner) has donated a lot of money to the democratic party/causes. Does that balance it out?
    - barry-cotter 6y ago
      Spend it on your politics like Soros or Koch. Accelerate technical progress like Musk. Pure vanity like that guy who spent $600m getting the Chicago GSB named after him. I’m sure if you tried you could come up with some ways you’d like the world to be different that you could spend a lot of money on. Personally I’d love to see well recognized, respected tests that test the same knowledge as a variety of university degrees. Setting up an organization to do that and giving prizes for the top results to build brand awareness for the first decade could easily burn a million dollars a year for a decade for one subject. Advertising is expensive, organizations are expensive, people are expensive, especially qualified, competent ones.
  - artvark11 6y ago
    It's more like she donated 5-7.5% of Jeff's money.
    - NeutronStar 6y ago
      They wed together before he started Amazon. She's not some vulture that came along after and made off with half his money.
    - cupofcoffee 6y ago
      Don't know why being downvoted, it's factually true.
      - nbm 6y ago
        But it’s not actually factually true - it’s her money according to the laws and contracts in place. If it were his money, he’d have it. He doesn’t, so it isn’t “factually” his money. It’s only “his money” in a non-factual basis where we are implying something akin to “he earned it and she didn’t”.
    - nefitty 6y ago
      It’s hard to believe he has achieved what he has without the support of his partner. That’s kinda the point of splitting assets upon divorce, because the law recognizes that partnership as (ideally) having been a shared effort to the benefit of both individuals.
- arolihas 6y ago
  It's my understanding she donates a lot more than Bezos does. Consider the fact she has agreed to the giving pledge, giving away half of her wealth to charity similar to Buffett, Gates, etc. Whereas Bezos has not agreed, and I'm not aware of any time when he has donated billions. That may be the difference but I'm not sure as I haven't really seen any Bezos donation headlines that were negative, or any that I could remember at all for that matter .
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Bezos wants to build spaceships. His money will go to that.
    - _opc6 6y ago
      Aside from human narcissism, the space race is motivated by it's militarily strategic importance. Outside of a black swan event, humanity is not ever getting off this rock in any colonial capacity. Space, it turns out, is a really shitty fucking place for life. Elon's Mars fantasy is a red herring.
- beambot 6y ago
  According to the press, Jeff's giving has historically been underwhelming: https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-how-much-donations-charity-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-how-much-d... Do you have any examples to the contrary?
  - nceqs3 6y ago
    $10 billion climate change fund commitment. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/16/bezos-climate-grants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/1...
    - newacct583 6y ago
      That story only documents a $791M gift. The $10B is a fund he's dedicated but still owns. Obviously it's still almost a billion dollars, but well short of his ex's mark.
      - nceqs3 6y ago
        Yeah it's certainly less. I would imagine Jeff is still working over full time at Amazon. Come back to this thread in 20 years. I bet Bezos will be the next Gates. Similar public perception (cut throat titan) and funds.
    - wilde 6y ago
      I do wish we’d spend more time on spending from these funds and not the oft-hollow initial commitments. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/business/donor-advised-funds-tech-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/business/donor-advised-fu...
- soperj 6y ago
  Jeff has given very little ever. For instance he donated $690k to wildfire relief in Australia earlier this year. Every little bit counts clearly, but it's the equivalent of me giving 69 cents. I'm not bagging the guy for it, I'm just saying that there's clearly a difference, and that's why it's treated differently.
  - brian_cloutier 6y ago
    Does it matter how much that money is worth to him? Charity doesn't have to hurt to be effective. With that single donation he's done more good for Australia than I (also, I assume, you) will be able to with years of effort, surely that's worth celebrating.
    - ramraj07 6y ago
      I or you don't get to have $100 million mansions in every big city in the US either. His team probably spent more on the PR than the actual donation, just to make sure that the protestors placing mini guillotines in front of his house don't escalate further forcing him to increase his security budget.
    - NeutronStar 6y ago
      There a difference between judging him receiving money and judging the foundation receiving money.
    - soperj 6y ago
      No, I think I was quite clear on that. I'm not going to give you platitudes for donating 69 cents, and I wouldn't expect you to give them to me either is the point. The reason that Mackenzie Scott is receiving them here is that she didn't donate 69 cents, she donated a substantial amount.
    - Klinky 6y ago
      If you want negative opinion, then I am your man. The net value cost of these donations by these philanthropist billionaires should be considered. That is harder to calculate but basically what detrimental impact did generating this wealth cause? Does the donation really offset the damage done? For example, the very pro-business Australian government has been blamed for "shrinking government" by severely cutting back on bush management and firefighters leading to the fires getting out of control. These are the people welcoming the Bezos of the world with open arms. It's money from an ethically questionable source helping solve a problem caused by another group of people making ethically questionable decisions. Also billionaires combined donate a pittance compared to public institutions likes NIH or NSF, National Endowments and other grant giving orgs funded by the public. Really we should just tax them more and funnel the money to public grants, and also properly enforce antitrust, labor laws and environmental regulations to limit societal damage wealth extraction causes, instead of hoping and praying billionaires will sprinkle a little moolah where it matters every blue moon.
- hendzen 6y ago
  Her generosity notwithstanding, she probably hired a great PR agency.
  - mindfulplay 6y ago
    Seems rather condescending doesn't it? You don't need a PR agency to sugar coat four billion dollars... It's actually pretty generous and requires some level of good faith assumption on our part.
- not2personal 6y ago
  The Women-are-wonderful effect probably plays a role. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect
  - rmak 6y ago
    And she is also saying covid19 has affected women and minorities more even though men are close to 60% of the deaths. I bet all her donations are going to feminists organizations.
    - alex_young 6y ago
      Why do you post sexist stuff like this here? Your few comments all seem to have the same axe to grind and I rather doubt many here are receptive to such a dated perspective.
      - h_anna_h 6y ago
        how is it sexist?
      - rmak 6y ago
        If you find it sexist to point out her outright discrimination towards men I don't know what you'd think if a man said something like men are the majority of victims of domestic violence hence I'll be donating all my money to MRA organizations. I think many feminists would be asking for that guy's head for real.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  These reports come out because of PRs she's releasing to polish her image. The more virtuous donors stay anonymous.
  - tasty_freeze 6y ago
    I recently read the book "The Live You Can Save" by the philosopher Peter Singer. He said that yes, it is considered tacky and self serving to let the world know you did something charitable. That leaves us all in the position of not knowing what is normal, or perhaps that giving $1000/year is good enough. But if you learn that many of your coworkers give $20000/year, it will likely cause you to reevaluate if your $1000/year is really generous enough. So, to turn it around on you, if your choice is to let friends know that you've donated $X to some charity which may cause them to also be more charitable, or to keep it private because you are afraid of looking tacky, you have made the choice that your self-image is more important than the extra money it may cause friends to donate to the needy. BTW, it is a great book -- the most important book I've read in at least 10 years. One important point is his philosophy: all suffering is important, not just the people you know or who are local to you. Raising $30,000 for a fancy truck for a disabled person is unquestionably a kind act, but that same amount of money could save 20 lives in a developing country, or prevent river blindness in more than 100 children.
darkwizard42 6y ago
While there is the usual backlash about billionaires doing charity work (blah blah why are there billionaires in the first place), I'd be more interested if there was a way to reconcile the impact they have with these gifts and the process by which they choose where and how to donate and see if some improvement can be made to the way the US handles social services. The PPP loans seem to be given out to a number of seemingly undeserving recipients [1] and I wonder if an improvement in methodology could help avoid that. [1]https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion/article/Joel-Osteen-s-Lakewood-Church-got-4-4M-in-15800887.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion...
ve55 6y ago
One thing that I wish was considered more often when looking at effective philanthropy is the opportunity cost of the money in terms of amount donated over time. For example, assume someone like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos had donated all of their money (liquidating their shares however possible) the moment their companies went public. It's tough to say that this would have been a better result, since the amount donated would have been a small fraction in comparison to what could have been; their donations would have been a drop in the bucket. Given certain people (and/or corporations) have historically allocated capital very effectively (and, for example, that the annual returns of AMZN/MSFT/others have been very good for decades and obviously far surpass inflation+charity efficiency scaling), is it not more effective altruism for those like Bezos and Scott to keep their wealth compounding as effectively as possible, and then donate it much later on, perhaps in a few decades? I understand that the idea of this may sound unappealing for many reasons, but I rarely hear good counter-arguments for why it shouldn't be done. I apply this to myself personally, and rather than donate large amounts of my income now, I'd like to be able to donate 100x the amount (or whatever it may be) in 30-70 years. (edit: After reading some great responses, I do think the best counter-argument is perhaps that of "sure you can compound wealth and donate later, or you can donate to something so effective that it compounds (e.g. enables more people to live and accomplish things, which could compound at a higher growth rate). I think this is the best point to mention in response to what I wrote, but I don't know of any analysis that backs it up with hard numbers - do we have charities that we can demonstrate actually cause compounding to happen this well? It's difficult since we'd need to accurately model future compounding returns from them to get the types of answers that we'd want.)
- throwaway1777 6y ago
  In the case of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates they already did what you said. They ran their company for a few decades and kept most of their wealth tied to the company. Jeff Bezos isn't 31 years old anymore, he's 56. Bill Gates is 65. This argument reduces to the richer you are the more you can donate to charity. It doesn't really matter if I'm a billionaire, everyone will have more money later in life if they let it compound. The main issue is that there are real problems that need to be solved today too, you can't put everything off into the future
- 6y ago
bra-ket 6y ago
you can terraform Mars with all those gazillions of charity money, that mostly go to bureaucrats anyway.
- tasty_freeze 6y ago
  Can you provide a source for those facts? If true, it would be quite important to know.
  - kamaal 6y ago
    In most of these large charity set ups, the bulk of the money is spent on management expenses. It's the unwritten rule of all large organizations.
    - CerealFounder 6y ago
      How do you downvote comments? Sweeping statements like this are political in nature and should be banned.
      - kamaal 6y ago
        Im not just talking about Charity organizations. Any large people operation of any nature is like this. It's one of those default things that large people organizations have. Political parties and charities just happen to be a subset of this. Wait till you hear even armies, or even organized religions work the same way.
      - arolihas 6y ago
        You need 200 upvotes to unlock it. I suggest just following the hive mind for a bit if it’s that important to you.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  We have no idea how to geoengineer earth, yet alone Mars.
h_anna_h 6y ago
I personally stopped donating to charities ever since I discovered that 70%+ of the money goes to executives and the rest is just wasted on useless stuff rather than furthering the mission. I would be impressed if over $500M of that money would be used properly.
- yuliyp 6y ago
  You should find more effective charities. In the US at least they all have to file fairly detailed forms (Form 990) with the IRS that include the compensation of their executives as well as the major ways the charity spends its money. That can help you steer well clear of the 70%+ overhead charities.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  That's not the case for all charities... you want to check out Charity Navigator and find charities that spend a proportion of their funds on programs that you deem worthwhile. This is why I've donated to the American Red Cross (89.8% of donations go to their programs, meaning every $10 you give, $8.98 of it goes to charity), and RAINN - Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, who use 91.2% of donations on programs.
  - Alupis 6y ago
    The American Red Cross doesn't have a great history either [1][2] [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-... [2] https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-re...
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      I only recently discovered that The American Red Cross is different to The International Red Cross.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
awb 6y ago
I wonder if the Bezos-Scott divorce will be a warning sign for entrepreneurs. In what could have been a 50/50 split, Bezos walked away with 100% of their Washington Post and Blue Origin interests and 75% of their Amazon shares and 100% of their Amazon voting rights. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeff-bezos-finalizes-divorce-keeps-75-percent-amazon-shares-n991031 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeff-bezos-finalizes-di... What was by far the most expensive divorce in history was actually heavily weighted in Bezos' favor as far as divorces go. Partners that sacrifice their education or careers to raise children or manage a household should definitely be compensated in a divorce such that they can land on their feet and are set up for success post-partnership, but for entrepreneurs, a 50/50 splits puts even founders with majority voting rights in danger of losing their companies. It's easy to justify Bezos' wealth after transforming eCommerce, shipping, cloud computing and more. It's harder to justify Scott's $38B ($1.5B per year of marriage) when comparing her to other partners or mothers. I could see taking a partner's past (or projected) earning potential and compensating that amount. Let's say Scott gave up what reasonably could have been a $500k / year job, that would be $12.5M + 25 years compound interest in the divorce. The value she gave up for the sake of the partnership has been restored and the value Bezos created has been preserved. If there's a divorce between two partners who are also business partners, then 50/50 makes a lot more sense.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cbozeman 6y ago
  Jeff himself has said Amazon would not exist without Mackenzie... so I think not only is he perfectly happy with the outcome of the divorce, I think everyone was able to walk away, if not happy, at least satisfied. However, you are of course speaking in broad terms, and I also happen to think you're correct. I know this was a concern for Elon Musk at one point. How much of a concern, I don't know, but I definitely remember reading about it. This is really sticky sort of problem, wherein it seems good solutions are few and far between.
  - CerealFounder 6y ago
ackbar03 6y ago
Why did bezos leave this woman again?
- nceqs3 6y ago
  I believe it was a mutual separation.
- joana035 6y ago
  She left him due to cheating.
regularemployee 6y ago
This year I actually gave away all of my money and now my bank account has only ~$3k (after 8 years of earning software engineering salary). I didn't donate my money to non profits and instead I just gave out money to people I know who are not as fortunate as me. For example, someone I know got into a car accident last week and now couldn't drive to go to job interviews so I gave him 5k to help him out. I have a few people that I'm giving 2.5k / month to help them take care of their families and so they don't have to spend every waking hour door-dashing for people like me. I don't understand how society became so unfair and cruel and I didn't see the point in having savings when so many people around me have so little savings and no job. Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B. To put it in perspective, If I made 300k (my yearly salary) / month for my entire life, I still won't have 1B.
- lyime 6y ago
  Wow! You are a good human.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  > Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B. I doubt the goal is to impress you. While your sacrifice is admirable, at the end of the day, she's helping more people than you are.
  - walkingolof 6y ago
    What is he sacrificing? He makes a huge difference for a number of people.
  - mstade 6y ago
    > [...] she's helping more people than you are. It's not a contest though, is it? I'm sure we can all help one another in some way, and it's disheartening to see comments such as yours discrediting (passively as it may be) the help some people give, as if their help is less worthy than others.
bane 6y ago
I feel like if I somehow ended up with billions and was struck by large-scale altruism, instead of just giving it away, I'd set up some kind of fund that would ensure it was around forever, would grow at the pace of inflation, and would use the excess to make the world a better place. A billion dollars today ain't worth that far into the future. But spread out over decades or even gasp, centuries, it could do far more good in the long run. One really interesting example is the Battelle Memorial Institute. A charitable trust that also happens to be one of the largest R&D organizations on the planet and does over $6 billion/year in revenue. But has strict governance principles over working on weapons, or things that might harm people. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battelle_Memorial_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battelle_Memorial_Institute
- tracer4201 6y ago
  Why not both? Save some so it can grow and you can continue to provide to charitable causes in the fire but also find some causes you believe in and organizations you trust, and let them do things they’re good at.
- tehlike 6y ago
  Her money is mostly in AMZN stock, as far as i am concerned, which will provide far larger returns than the inflation. What you said will probably still work out.
  - repsilat 6y ago
    This is kinda like dividends -- if the value of the dividend (or charitable donation) grows more slowly than the AMZN stock, then delaying the dividend/donation a year and giving the invested/grown amount later might mean greater impact. And then inductively...
- eezurr 6y ago
  Helping people today also has exponential returns in the long run. More than investment returns since economic growth is tied to people.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
underseacables 6y ago
That’s it?

101 points by neom 6y ago

It's interesting how differently Ms. Scott's philanthropy is treated than Bezos's. When Bezos donates the headlines and tweets are very negative whereas when Scott donates they are very positive. I don't see the difference. Isn't it the same pot of money these donations are coming from (Amazon)?

foolfoolz 6y ago
because she donated like 10-15% of her money. what percentage does jeff donate?
- bagacrap 6y ago
  which is still effectively nothing for her, since even 1% of her money is enough to do whatever she wants for the rest of her life. Honest question: besides charity, how can you possibly spend your wealth after it creeps past the billion or ten billion mark? Buy an archipelago?
  - TuringNYC 6y ago
    >> Honest question: besides charity, how can you possibly spend your wealth after it creeps past the billion or ten billion mark? Buy an archipelago? Buy influence, then use that influence to drive policy changes. Unfortunately it is not always used the way we want, some examples are the Koch brothers and Robert Mercer Theoretically you can use this influence to drive better climate policy, better civil rights, better social justice
    - nceqs3 6y ago
      Robert Mercer is not a billionaire btw. Ironically Jim Simons (his ex partner) has donated a lot of money to the democratic party/causes. Does that balance it out?
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    Spend it on your politics like Soros or Koch. Accelerate technical progress like Musk. Pure vanity like that guy who spent $600m getting the Chicago GSB named after him. I’m sure if you tried you could come up with some ways you’d like the world to be different that you could spend a lot of money on. Personally I’d love to see well recognized, respected tests that test the same knowledge as a variety of university degrees. Setting up an organization to do that and giving prizes for the top results to build brand awareness for the first decade could easily burn a million dollars a year for a decade for one subject. Advertising is expensive, organizations are expensive, people are expensive, especially qualified, competent ones.
- artvark11 6y ago
  It's more like she donated 5-7.5% of Jeff's money.
  - NeutronStar 6y ago
    They wed together before he started Amazon. She's not some vulture that came along after and made off with half his money.
  - cupofcoffee 6y ago
    Don't know why being downvoted, it's factually true.
    - nbm 6y ago
      But it’s not actually factually true - it’s her money according to the laws and contracts in place. If it were his money, he’d have it. He doesn’t, so it isn’t “factually” his money. It’s only “his money” in a non-factual basis where we are implying something akin to “he earned it and she didn’t”.
  - nefitty 6y ago
    It’s hard to believe he has achieved what he has without the support of his partner. That’s kinda the point of splitting assets upon divorce, because the law recognizes that partnership as (ideally) having been a shared effort to the benefit of both individuals.
arolihas 6y ago
It's my understanding she donates a lot more than Bezos does. Consider the fact she has agreed to the giving pledge, giving away half of her wealth to charity similar to Buffett, Gates, etc. Whereas Bezos has not agreed, and I'm not aware of any time when he has donated billions. That may be the difference but I'm not sure as I haven't really seen any Bezos donation headlines that were negative, or any that I could remember at all for that matter .
- sjg007 6y ago
  Bezos wants to build spaceships. His money will go to that.
  - _opc6 6y ago
    Aside from human narcissism, the space race is motivated by it's militarily strategic importance. Outside of a black swan event, humanity is not ever getting off this rock in any colonial capacity. Space, it turns out, is a really shitty fucking place for life. Elon's Mars fantasy is a red herring.
beambot 6y ago
According to the press, Jeff's giving has historically been underwhelming: https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-how-much-donations-charity-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-how-much-d... Do you have any examples to the contrary?
- nceqs3 6y ago
  $10 billion climate change fund commitment. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/16/bezos-climate-grants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/1...
  - newacct583 6y ago
    That story only documents a $791M gift. The $10B is a fund he's dedicated but still owns. Obviously it's still almost a billion dollars, but well short of his ex's mark.
    - nceqs3 6y ago
      Yeah it's certainly less. I would imagine Jeff is still working over full time at Amazon. Come back to this thread in 20 years. I bet Bezos will be the next Gates. Similar public perception (cut throat titan) and funds.
  - wilde 6y ago
    I do wish we’d spend more time on spending from these funds and not the oft-hollow initial commitments. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/business/donor-advised-funds-tech-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/business/donor-advised-fu...
soperj 6y ago
Jeff has given very little ever. For instance he donated $690k to wildfire relief in Australia earlier this year. Every little bit counts clearly, but it's the equivalent of me giving 69 cents. I'm not bagging the guy for it, I'm just saying that there's clearly a difference, and that's why it's treated differently.
- brian_cloutier 6y ago
  Does it matter how much that money is worth to him? Charity doesn't have to hurt to be effective. With that single donation he's done more good for Australia than I (also, I assume, you) will be able to with years of effort, surely that's worth celebrating.
  - ramraj07 6y ago
    I or you don't get to have $100 million mansions in every big city in the US either. His team probably spent more on the PR than the actual donation, just to make sure that the protestors placing mini guillotines in front of his house don't escalate further forcing him to increase his security budget.
  - NeutronStar 6y ago
    There a difference between judging him receiving money and judging the foundation receiving money.
  - soperj 6y ago
    No, I think I was quite clear on that. I'm not going to give you platitudes for donating 69 cents, and I wouldn't expect you to give them to me either is the point. The reason that Mackenzie Scott is receiving them here is that she didn't donate 69 cents, she donated a substantial amount.
  - Klinky 6y ago
    If you want negative opinion, then I am your man. The net value cost of these donations by these philanthropist billionaires should be considered. That is harder to calculate but basically what detrimental impact did generating this wealth cause? Does the donation really offset the damage done? For example, the very pro-business Australian government has been blamed for "shrinking government" by severely cutting back on bush management and firefighters leading to the fires getting out of control. These are the people welcoming the Bezos of the world with open arms. It's money from an ethically questionable source helping solve a problem caused by another group of people making ethically questionable decisions. Also billionaires combined donate a pittance compared to public institutions likes NIH or NSF, National Endowments and other grant giving orgs funded by the public. Really we should just tax them more and funnel the money to public grants, and also properly enforce antitrust, labor laws and environmental regulations to limit societal damage wealth extraction causes, instead of hoping and praying billionaires will sprinkle a little moolah where it matters every blue moon.
hendzen 6y ago
Her generosity notwithstanding, she probably hired a great PR agency.
- mindfulplay 6y ago
  Seems rather condescending doesn't it? You don't need a PR agency to sugar coat four billion dollars... It's actually pretty generous and requires some level of good faith assumption on our part.
not2personal 6y ago
The Women-are-wonderful effect probably plays a role. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect
- rmak 6y ago
  And she is also saying covid19 has affected women and minorities more even though men are close to 60% of the deaths. I bet all her donations are going to feminists organizations.
  - alex_young 6y ago
    Why do you post sexist stuff like this here? Your few comments all seem to have the same axe to grind and I rather doubt many here are receptive to such a dated perspective.
    - h_anna_h 6y ago
      how is it sexist?
    - rmak 6y ago
      If you find it sexist to point out her outright discrimination towards men I don't know what you'd think if a man said something like men are the majority of victims of domestic violence hence I'll be donating all my money to MRA organizations. I think many feminists would be asking for that guy's head for real.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
These reports come out because of PRs she's releasing to polish her image. The more virtuous donors stay anonymous.
- tasty_freeze 6y ago
  I recently read the book "The Live You Can Save" by the philosopher Peter Singer. He said that yes, it is considered tacky and self serving to let the world know you did something charitable. That leaves us all in the position of not knowing what is normal, or perhaps that giving $1000/year is good enough. But if you learn that many of your coworkers give $20000/year, it will likely cause you to reevaluate if your $1000/year is really generous enough. So, to turn it around on you, if your choice is to let friends know that you've donated $X to some charity which may cause them to also be more charitable, or to keep it private because you are afraid of looking tacky, you have made the choice that your self-image is more important than the extra money it may cause friends to donate to the needy. BTW, it is a great book -- the most important book I've read in at least 10 years. One important point is his philosophy: all suffering is important, not just the people you know or who are local to you. Raising $30,000 for a fancy truck for a disabled person is unquestionably a kind act, but that same amount of money could save 20 lives in a developing country, or prevent river blindness in more than 100 children.

darkwizard42 6y ago

While there is the usual backlash about billionaires doing charity work (blah blah why are there billionaires in the first place), I'd be more interested if there was a way to reconcile the impact they have with these gifts and the process by which they choose where and how to donate and see if some improvement can be made to the way the US handles social services. The PPP loans seem to be given out to a number of seemingly undeserving recipients [1] and I wonder if an improvement in methodology could help avoid that. [1]https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion/article/Joel-Osteen-s-Lakewood-Church-got-4-4M-in-15800887.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion...

ve55 6y ago

One thing that I wish was considered more often when looking at effective philanthropy is the opportunity cost of the money in terms of amount donated over time. For example, assume someone like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos had donated all of their money (liquidating their shares however possible) the moment their companies went public. It's tough to say that this would have been a better result, since the amount donated would have been a small fraction in comparison to what could have been; their donations would have been a drop in the bucket. Given certain people (and/or corporations) have historically allocated capital very effectively (and, for example, that the annual returns of AMZN/MSFT/others have been very good for decades and obviously far surpass inflation+charity efficiency scaling), is it not more effective altruism for those like Bezos and Scott to keep their wealth compounding as effectively as possible, and then donate it much later on, perhaps in a few decades? I understand that the idea of this may sound unappealing for many reasons, but I rarely hear good counter-arguments for why it shouldn't be done. I apply this to myself personally, and rather than donate large amounts of my income now, I'd like to be able to donate 100x the amount (or whatever it may be) in 30-70 years. (edit: After reading some great responses, I do think the best counter-argument is perhaps that of "sure you can compound wealth and donate later, or you can donate to something so effective that it compounds (e.g. enables more people to live and accomplish things, which could compound at a higher growth rate). I think this is the best point to mention in response to what I wrote, but I don't know of any analysis that backs it up with hard numbers - do we have charities that we can demonstrate actually cause compounding to happen this well? It's difficult since we'd need to accurately model future compounding returns from them to get the types of answers that we'd want.)

throwaway1777 6y ago
In the case of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates they already did what you said. They ran their company for a few decades and kept most of their wealth tied to the company. Jeff Bezos isn't 31 years old anymore, he's 56. Bill Gates is 65. This argument reduces to the richer you are the more you can donate to charity. It doesn't really matter if I'm a billionaire, everyone will have more money later in life if they let it compound. The main issue is that there are real problems that need to be solved today too, you can't put everything off into the future
6y ago

bra-ket 6y ago

you can terraform Mars with all those gazillions of charity money, that mostly go to bureaucrats anyway.

tasty_freeze 6y ago
Can you provide a source for those facts? If true, it would be quite important to know.
- kamaal 6y ago
  In most of these large charity set ups, the bulk of the money is spent on management expenses. It's the unwritten rule of all large organizations.
  - CerealFounder 6y ago
    How do you downvote comments? Sweeping statements like this are political in nature and should be banned.
    - kamaal 6y ago
      Im not just talking about Charity organizations. Any large people operation of any nature is like this. It's one of those default things that large people organizations have. Political parties and charities just happen to be a subset of this. Wait till you hear even armies, or even organized religions work the same way.
    - arolihas 6y ago
      You need 200 upvotes to unlock it. I suggest just following the hive mind for a bit if it’s that important to you.
dogma1138 6y ago
We have no idea how to geoengineer earth, yet alone Mars.

h_anna_h 6y ago

I personally stopped donating to charities ever since I discovered that 70%+ of the money goes to executives and the rest is just wasted on useless stuff rather than furthering the mission. I would be impressed if over $500M of that money would be used properly.

yuliyp 6y ago
You should find more effective charities. In the US at least they all have to file fairly detailed forms (Form 990) with the IRS that include the compensation of their executives as well as the major ways the charity spends its money. That can help you steer well clear of the 70%+ overhead charities.
cbozeman 6y ago
That's not the case for all charities... you want to check out Charity Navigator and find charities that spend a proportion of their funds on programs that you deem worthwhile. This is why I've donated to the American Red Cross (89.8% of donations go to their programs, meaning every $10 you give, $8.98 of it goes to charity), and RAINN - Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, who use 91.2% of donations on programs.
- Alupis 6y ago
  The American Red Cross doesn't have a great history either [1][2] [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-... [2] https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-re...
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    I only recently discovered that The American Red Cross is different to The International Red Cross.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

awb 6y ago

I wonder if the Bezos-Scott divorce will be a warning sign for entrepreneurs. In what could have been a 50/50 split, Bezos walked away with 100% of their Washington Post and Blue Origin interests and 75% of their Amazon shares and 100% of their Amazon voting rights. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeff-bezos-finalizes-divorce-keeps-75-percent-amazon-shares-n991031 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeff-bezos-finalizes-di... What was by far the most expensive divorce in history was actually heavily weighted in Bezos' favor as far as divorces go. Partners that sacrifice their education or careers to raise children or manage a household should definitely be compensated in a divorce such that they can land on their feet and are set up for success post-partnership, but for entrepreneurs, a 50/50 splits puts even founders with majority voting rights in danger of losing their companies. It's easy to justify Bezos' wealth after transforming eCommerce, shipping, cloud computing and more. It's harder to justify Scott's $38B ($1.5B per year of marriage) when comparing her to other partners or mothers. I could see taking a partner's past (or projected) earning potential and compensating that amount. Let's say Scott gave up what reasonably could have been a $500k / year job, that would be $12.5M + 25 years compound interest in the divorce. The value she gave up for the sake of the partnership has been restored and the value Bezos created has been preserved. If there's a divorce between two partners who are also business partners, then 50/50 makes a lot more sense.

deleted 6y ago
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cbozeman 6y ago
Jeff himself has said Amazon would not exist without Mackenzie... so I think not only is he perfectly happy with the outcome of the divorce, I think everyone was able to walk away, if not happy, at least satisfied. However, you are of course speaking in broad terms, and I also happen to think you're correct. I know this was a concern for Elon Musk at one point. How much of a concern, I don't know, but I definitely remember reading about it. This is really sticky sort of problem, wherein it seems good solutions are few and far between.
- CerealFounder 6y ago

ackbar03 6y ago

Why did bezos leave this woman again?

nceqs3 6y ago
I believe it was a mutual separation.
joana035 6y ago
She left him due to cheating.

regularemployee 6y ago

This year I actually gave away all of my money and now my bank account has only ~$3k (after 8 years of earning software engineering salary). I didn't donate my money to non profits and instead I just gave out money to people I know who are not as fortunate as me. For example, someone I know got into a car accident last week and now couldn't drive to go to job interviews so I gave him 5k to help him out. I have a few people that I'm giving 2.5k / month to help them take care of their families and so they don't have to spend every waking hour door-dashing for people like me. I don't understand how society became so unfair and cruel and I didn't see the point in having savings when so many people around me have so little savings and no job. Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B. To put it in perspective, If I made 300k (my yearly salary) / month for my entire life, I still won't have 1B.

lyime 6y ago
Wow! You are a good human.
BeetleB 6y ago
> Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B. I doubt the goal is to impress you. While your sacrifice is admirable, at the end of the day, she's helping more people than you are.
- walkingolof 6y ago
  What is he sacrificing? He makes a huge difference for a number of people.
- mstade 6y ago
  > [...] she's helping more people than you are. It's not a contest though, is it? I'm sure we can all help one another in some way, and it's disheartening to see comments such as yours discrediting (passively as it may be) the help some people give, as if their help is less worthy than others.

bane 6y ago

I feel like if I somehow ended up with billions and was struck by large-scale altruism, instead of just giving it away, I'd set up some kind of fund that would ensure it was around forever, would grow at the pace of inflation, and would use the excess to make the world a better place. A billion dollars today ain't worth that far into the future. But spread out over decades or even gasp, centuries, it could do far more good in the long run. One really interesting example is the Battelle Memorial Institute. A charitable trust that also happens to be one of the largest R&D organizations on the planet and does over $6 billion/year in revenue. But has strict governance principles over working on weapons, or things that might harm people. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battelle_Memorial_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battelle_Memorial_Institute

tracer4201 6y ago
Why not both? Save some so it can grow and you can continue to provide to charitable causes in the fire but also find some causes you believe in and organizations you trust, and let them do things they’re good at.
tehlike 6y ago
Her money is mostly in AMZN stock, as far as i am concerned, which will provide far larger returns than the inflation. What you said will probably still work out.
- repsilat 6y ago
  This is kinda like dividends -- if the value of the dividend (or charitable donation) grows more slowly than the AMZN stock, then delaying the dividend/donation a year and giving the invested/grown amount later might mean greater impact. And then inductively...
eezurr 6y ago
Helping people today also has exponential returns in the long run. More than investment returns since economic growth is tied to people.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

underseacables 6y ago

That’s it?