8 ms·

Seeding by Ceding

69 points by RyanShook 5y ago

alborzb 5y ago
And yet I wonder how much $ Jeff Bezos has given out ever since this tweet [1] 4 years ago, when he was seeking ideas publicly on how to expand his "philanthropic strategy" ?? [1] https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/875418348598603776 https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/875418348598603776
- watertom 5y ago
  I just figured it was a tax dodge.
  - Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
    There is no way to end up ahead by giving away money in order to pay tax on that money. So long as the marginal tax rate is <100%, you will always lose more money by giving it away than by keeping it and paying tax on it.
    - satyrnein 5y ago
      Except for potentially things like moving money into your own foundation, then spending the money on your own interests rather than charity. (Not that that's what's happening here.)
- aetherson 5y ago
  Apparently he created a $10B charitable organization to fight climate change last year.
  - cute_boi 5y ago
    Just to dodge tax. Bezos is good business man he will only invest for something in return.
    - solveit 5y ago
      Please explain to me in excruciating detail how you legally end up net better off by donating ten billion.
      - beckman466 5y ago
        "These new philanthropists bring to charity an “entrepreneurial disposition”, Hay and Muller wrote in a 2014 paper, yet one that they suggest has been “diverting attention and resources away from the failings of contemporary manifestations of capitalism”, and may also be serving as a substitute for public spending withdrawn by the state. Essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class. In the CEO society, the exercise of social responsibilities is no longer debated in terms of whether corporations should or shouldn’t be responsible for more than their own business interests. Instead, it is about how philanthropy can be used to reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth. Zuckerberg’s investment in solutions to the Bay Area housing crisis is an example of this broader trend." [1] Although with your "in excruciating detail" it sounds like you've been presented with the evidence before, yet you are somehow unwilling to admit the failings of the system. This last part is meant as an observation and not as a negative value judgement. This video with Anand Giridharadas is also great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM, as well as his book 'Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World'. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-with-charitable-billionaires-philanthrocapitalism https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-wit...
      - geofft 5y ago
        I'm not sure I agree with the premise myself, but I find the argument plausible: if it goes into a new charitable organization today, that's $10B off his taxable income this year, whether or not the money goes to actual efforts this year. If he directs donates the money later, then he gets that exact amount as a deduction later. Given that he's stepping down as CEO this year, the difference between a $10B deduction on his taxes this year and the same amount of money deducted across multiple future years when he has less income can be substantial. (This argument assumes that he intends to spend $10B on charitable donations at some point in his life anyway; it's not an argument for why spending $10B is better for his taxes than not spending it at all.)
Fluid_Mechanics 5y ago
What’s there to explain. She acquired billions of dollars because of a thoroughly corrupt and inept legal system and she clearly cares what others think of her.
- tinktank 5y ago
  And yet she has it, and is doing good with it while we're reduced to snarky, unevidenced comments on a niche website. The horror.
gigatexal 5y ago
Everyone here is so cynical. She has the money. She's giving it away. Who cares why?
- _jal 5y ago
  A little too quick with that.
- brighton36 5y ago
  Probably people resent how equal the wealthy are, in terms of dictating public policy. There's a degree of wealth, at which point the government is merely a performance.
- curation 5y ago
  I care why because it is a complete and ideologically rationalized tax dodge: LET US NOT tax the rich because they are morally superior (proven by their meritocratic rise) so we can count on them to donate some of their money and that redistributes wealth! Which is to say, that which you call cynical, is merely resisting western ideological assumptions that pull our subconscious strings.
- sp332 5y ago
  Because billions of dollars can change the landscape of businesses or governments? This is going to directly change the lives of thousands of people, and since it's directed, it's sure to have far-reaching effects. It's totally OK to hold someone accountable for that.
  - geofft 5y ago
    Then we shouldn't let people accumulate billions of dollars in the first place! They can do (and in fact do) so much more damage with billions of dollars in ways other than charitable giving.
- ystad 5y ago
  In my opinion: A progressive tax structure would have made this the people's money to spend. You spend it on what seems fit to the people (via your elected representative) - health care for example. You have lost control of your money This money is now beholden to a group of individuals who can decide what works best for them. It could be malaria or it could be building a spaceship to Mars. The decision is not yours.
mabbo 5y ago
> we believe that teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use, we encouraged them to spend it however they choose I think this is the key to a lot of good charity work today. We need to stop saying "I'm giving you this money so you can do the thing I think will help" and instead give money to the people who know what will help because they've dedicated their lives to trying to help. It's about trusting that someone else knows more than you do, which seems to be more and more difficult in a world where the very basic facts about anything are available to anyone instantly.
- akudha 5y ago
  I remember listening to an interview by an Italian man who did lot of volunteer work in Africa. He said when he was young, he went to Africa (I forgot which country) - he saw very fertile soil and thought "why aren't the locals planting anything here?". Acting smug, he went ahead and planted some stuff, the locals raised eyebrows but said nothing. One morning he goes to the field, the entire place is trashed, like a warzone. The night before, wild pigs had had a good time partying in his beloved field! If he had asked the locals first, they would've told him to take care of the wild pigs problem before planting anything. He said that was the last time he assumed he knew more than locals because of his fancy degrees and elite upbringing. This is also my main complaint with organizations like the Gates foundation. They do a lot of good, but they also act on the firm belief (arrogance?) that they know more than anyone else in the room, especially the locals. Examples below https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/africans-speak-out-against-the-mass-circumcision-campaign-300370353.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/africans-speak-out-... https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-education-initiative-failure-2018-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-melinda-gates-foundatio...
  - nceqs3 5y ago
    I have many family members who work in the development world. The Gates Foundation is a punchline of sorts and many people do not like them. Melinda is very christian and refused for years to fund contraception or abortions. Meanwhile melinda travels the world being fawned over as a feminist queen. The other valid criticism of these development nonprofits is that they are propping up dictators. People won't rise up against their terrible governments if they have free everything from the US/Europe. Looking at you USAID.
markus_zhang 5y ago
As long as rich people are giving money away I'm fine.
- Hjfrf 5y ago
  I'd rather do it via tax so that it's not an indirect subsidy for assholes.
- jmeister 5y ago
  It’s not that simple. Read Matt Yglesias or David Shor on the damage some progressive non-profits have done to the communities they intend to help, and their broader cause. I see many such orgs on Scott’s list. Negative ROI.
  - wombatmobile 5y ago
    Could you explain what's negative about Scott's giving?
  - akudha 5y ago
    Interested in learning more. Could you please list one or two orgs from her list and why you doubt them?
  - markus_zhang 5y ago
    Thanks. I'm sure it's complicated. Will take some read.
- antattack 5y ago
  Depends on what charity/non profit does. Many waste money on fund-raising activities, scams, illegal activities and politics. [1][2][3] [1] https://www.charitywatch.org/charity-donating-articles/charitywatch-hall-of-shame https://www.charitywatch.org/charity-donating-articles/chari... [2]https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/11/admissions-scandal-causes-critics-question-whether-donor-money-also-influences-who https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/11/admissions-sc... [3]https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2019/donald-j-trump-pays-court-ordered-2-million-illegally-using-trump-foundation https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2019/donald-j-trump-pays-cou...
solveit 5y ago
Actually, I'm going to make this a top-level comment. Would one of the people claiming that she's just doing it for the tax benefits please explain to me, in excruciating detail, just how you would legally end up with more money by donating billions?
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  By donating appreciated stock, you can deduct it from income, twice. So approximately, if someone donates half their wealth she'll pay 0 income tax, which may be more than her tax burden on the whole amount. Getting this exactly accurate requires detailed accounting, as well as tax sheltering, deductible spending on first class travel as part of her charitable work, deductible payments to children and the value of buying favors and making her personal brand marketable, etc.
  - solveit 5y ago
    Granting your premise that you can pay zero tax by donating half your wealth (which I'm guessing assumes you have zero cost basis for your assets), wouldn't that still leave you with... half your money? It doesn't seem worth it unless you're paying 50% in income/capital gains/whatever tax.
- kolbe 5y ago
  Firstly, you should specify what it means to have “more money.” For one, her wealth is (to an approximation) all Amazon stock at a zero basis. She can’t spend Amazon stock, so in reality, she doesn’t have the amount of money that say Forbes claims she has. She has a massive tax lability before she can turn this wealth into money. So, you should be asking “how does this minimize her net monetary position after liquidating Amazon stock?” To that, I don’t think it’s true. Yes, she can “double count” the donation, but that would require her taxes be over 50% to come out ahead. Given she has mostly zero basis long term cap gains, I don’t think she’s even close to that rate.
wombatmobile 5y ago
If we take Scott's words at face value and assume good faith, this is a significant political statement: "Putting large donors at the center of stories on social progress is a distortion of their role. Me, Dan, a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisors — we are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change. In this effort, we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
What a thoroughly empty statement. There is almost no content to this, it consists of blandly repeating the mantras of the day. This reinforces to me just how much the current fashion - constant obeisance to "equity" if not "equality" - is a replacement religion. Utterly empty, pure signalling. Edit - for instance: "Discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities has been deepening..." Since when? Measured how? Notice that every claim - which aligns with the religion of the day, genuflection to equity - is made as if it were an ironclad fact instead of a questionable opinion, while being juxtaposed with fake unending humility. "I don't know anything about how to solve inequity, so I worked with <progressive groups that claim to do so>, because I absolutely know that every one of their arguable political claims are true." She even claims Jeff's money was made through a "system that needs change" - how so? Almost all his money was made through stock appreciation. He made the actual dollars she is now giving away from investors in Amazon stock, not "black and brown bodies" or whatever the current victim group is. Edit: another instance I couldn't miss: "Over 700 million people globally still live in extreme poverty. To find solutions, we [...] prioritized organizations with [...] leaders of color, and a specific focus on empowering women and girls."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
throwaway_45 5y ago
Wish she had got half of Bezos's money. Bezos's might be a great business man, but I don't think he is a great human being. This was an article 5 years ago about how amazon treats its employees: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-... It hasn't seemed to stop amazon from growing like crazy. He is the modern day Robber Barron, but maybe we have no Upton Sinclair or maybe people just don't care. Bezos seems to be using strategies from the early 20th century.
rayiner 5y ago
I’m very irritated about Scott’s foray into funding ethnic activist organizations. Her basic strategy is to give to organizations with expertise in an area, and she projects that onto giving money to identity-based organizations, on the theory that those organizations are “experts” in the ethnic groups they purport to speak for. > Because community-centered service is such a powerful catalyst and multiplier, we spent the first quarter of 2021 identifying and evaluating equity-oriented non-profit teams working in areas that have been neglected. The result was $2,739,000,000 in gifts to 286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked. But if you look at the list of say Asian organizations funded by Scott, many are Asian progressive activists. I’m a card carrying Asian and I’ve never heard of any of them. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, progressive activists are unrepresentative of the minority groups they purport to speak for: https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang For example, one organization Scott funded tries to teach Asian kids to dismantle the “model minority myth.” As far as I can tell, what they define as a “myth” is just how my Asian parents socialized their children to be. The problem is that selecting particular Asian identity groups for funding is itself an exercise in using wealth and privilege to pick winners and losers. In this case, Scott is showering Amazon bucks on one side of a debate within the Asian community itself, distorting that debate.
- debrice 5y ago
  I believe it’s also an indirect way of voting with your dollars. While they probably don’t owe that much $$$ to the IRS, I suspect this will likely cover some of it while letting them decide where their tax should go (I don’t really have an opinion on this strategy/system, just thought it could add to the discussion)
bunkydoo 5y ago
Wow, very interesting to see billionaires former wives going their own way with a large sum of cash and blogging about it...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
seasily 5y ago
There is no nobility in spending money someone else earned on a bunch of silly virtue signaling. Good for her for marrying well, but let's not pretend this is about anything more than her desire for attention.
- ratsforhorses 5y ago
  Sounds very dismissive, did Bezos earn it or did (do) Amazon's workers? Besides from my understanding she was very supportive when he decided to leave his "cushy" well paid job...etc etc...also beyond the debate here (which I find very interesting) whether her donations will be effective... I think, hope, that her giving may open the floodgates of giving (especially seeing there's so much unrealized profit from stocks etc and... unpaid taxes) The article from Time below suggests her giving could actually be disruptive, let's hope effective too... One quote I liked particularly "Inside Philanthropy called her methods “simultaneously exciting and troubling to behold.” If all philanthropists worked the way she did—acting alone without a foundation or an obvious way of being contacted—grantmaking might be more efficient, but it would be less transparent, and possibly less diverse in its interests and approaches. (There might also be fewer jobs in the philanthropy business.)" https://time.com/6050873/mackenzie-scott-profile/ https://time.com/6050873/mackenzie-scott-profile/
  - seasily 5y ago
    She outright spits on the way Bezos made his money, when he has one of the most honest and efficiency-enhancing paths to earning his fortune. Is the world a better place because Gates used blatantly illegal monopolistic practices to stifle innovation in the OS space? Or because Facebook is willing to engage in dirtier data-sharing, growth, and addictive product design? Whatever one thinks of those, Amazon created a market for the long tail of books, media, and then goods that simply didn't exist. And then followed it up with one of the most important platforms in the history of the tech and startup ecosystem. He's done more good with those than she'll ever do by giving his earnings to whatever is most fashionable at the moment.

69 points by RyanShook 5y ago

And yet I wonder how much $ Jeff Bezos has given out ever since this tweet [1] 4 years ago, when he was seeking ideas publicly on how to expand his "philanthropic strategy" ?? [1] https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/875418348598603776 https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/875418348598603776

watertom 5y ago
I just figured it was a tax dodge.
- Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
  There is no way to end up ahead by giving away money in order to pay tax on that money. So long as the marginal tax rate is <100%, you will always lose more money by giving it away than by keeping it and paying tax on it.
  - satyrnein 5y ago
    Except for potentially things like moving money into your own foundation, then spending the money on your own interests rather than charity. (Not that that's what's happening here.)
aetherson 5y ago
Apparently he created a $10B charitable organization to fight climate change last year.
- cute_boi 5y ago
  Just to dodge tax. Bezos is good business man he will only invest for something in return.
  - solveit 5y ago
    Please explain to me in excruciating detail how you legally end up net better off by donating ten billion.
    - beckman466 5y ago
      "These new philanthropists bring to charity an “entrepreneurial disposition”, Hay and Muller wrote in a 2014 paper, yet one that they suggest has been “diverting attention and resources away from the failings of contemporary manifestations of capitalism”, and may also be serving as a substitute for public spending withdrawn by the state. Essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class. In the CEO society, the exercise of social responsibilities is no longer debated in terms of whether corporations should or shouldn’t be responsible for more than their own business interests. Instead, it is about how philanthropy can be used to reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth. Zuckerberg’s investment in solutions to the Bay Area housing crisis is an example of this broader trend." [1] Although with your "in excruciating detail" it sounds like you've been presented with the evidence before, yet you are somehow unwilling to admit the failings of the system. This last part is meant as an observation and not as a negative value judgement. This video with Anand Giridharadas is also great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM, as well as his book 'Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World'. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-with-charitable-billionaires-philanthrocapitalism https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-wit...
    - geofft 5y ago
      I'm not sure I agree with the premise myself, but I find the argument plausible: if it goes into a new charitable organization today, that's $10B off his taxable income this year, whether or not the money goes to actual efforts this year. If he directs donates the money later, then he gets that exact amount as a deduction later. Given that he's stepping down as CEO this year, the difference between a $10B deduction on his taxes this year and the same amount of money deducted across multiple future years when he has less income can be substantial. (This argument assumes that he intends to spend $10B on charitable donations at some point in his life anyway; it's not an argument for why spending $10B is better for his taxes than not spending it at all.)

Fluid_Mechanics 5y ago

What’s there to explain. She acquired billions of dollars because of a thoroughly corrupt and inept legal system and she clearly cares what others think of her.

tinktank 5y ago
And yet she has it, and is doing good with it while we're reduced to snarky, unevidenced comments on a niche website. The horror.

gigatexal 5y ago

Everyone here is so cynical. She has the money. She's giving it away. Who cares why?

_jal 5y ago
A little too quick with that.
brighton36 5y ago
Probably people resent how equal the wealthy are, in terms of dictating public policy. There's a degree of wealth, at which point the government is merely a performance.
curation 5y ago
I care why because it is a complete and ideologically rationalized tax dodge: LET US NOT tax the rich because they are morally superior (proven by their meritocratic rise) so we can count on them to donate some of their money and that redistributes wealth! Which is to say, that which you call cynical, is merely resisting western ideological assumptions that pull our subconscious strings.
sp332 5y ago
Because billions of dollars can change the landscape of businesses or governments? This is going to directly change the lives of thousands of people, and since it's directed, it's sure to have far-reaching effects. It's totally OK to hold someone accountable for that.
- geofft 5y ago
  Then we shouldn't let people accumulate billions of dollars in the first place! They can do (and in fact do) so much more damage with billions of dollars in ways other than charitable giving.
ystad 5y ago
In my opinion: A progressive tax structure would have made this the people's money to spend. You spend it on what seems fit to the people (via your elected representative) - health care for example. You have lost control of your money This money is now beholden to a group of individuals who can decide what works best for them. It could be malaria or it could be building a spaceship to Mars. The decision is not yours.

mabbo 5y ago

> we believe that teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use, we encouraged them to spend it however they choose I think this is the key to a lot of good charity work today. We need to stop saying "I'm giving you this money so you can do the thing I think will help" and instead give money to the people who know what will help because they've dedicated their lives to trying to help. It's about trusting that someone else knows more than you do, which seems to be more and more difficult in a world where the very basic facts about anything are available to anyone instantly.

akudha 5y ago
I remember listening to an interview by an Italian man who did lot of volunteer work in Africa. He said when he was young, he went to Africa (I forgot which country) - he saw very fertile soil and thought "why aren't the locals planting anything here?". Acting smug, he went ahead and planted some stuff, the locals raised eyebrows but said nothing. One morning he goes to the field, the entire place is trashed, like a warzone. The night before, wild pigs had had a good time partying in his beloved field! If he had asked the locals first, they would've told him to take care of the wild pigs problem before planting anything. He said that was the last time he assumed he knew more than locals because of his fancy degrees and elite upbringing. This is also my main complaint with organizations like the Gates foundation. They do a lot of good, but they also act on the firm belief (arrogance?) that they know more than anyone else in the room, especially the locals. Examples below https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/africans-speak-out-against-the-mass-circumcision-campaign-300370353.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/africans-speak-out-... https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-education-initiative-failure-2018-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-melinda-gates-foundatio...
- nceqs3 5y ago
  I have many family members who work in the development world. The Gates Foundation is a punchline of sorts and many people do not like them. Melinda is very christian and refused for years to fund contraception or abortions. Meanwhile melinda travels the world being fawned over as a feminist queen. The other valid criticism of these development nonprofits is that they are propping up dictators. People won't rise up against their terrible governments if they have free everything from the US/Europe. Looking at you USAID.

markus_zhang 5y ago

As long as rich people are giving money away I'm fine.

Hjfrf 5y ago
I'd rather do it via tax so that it's not an indirect subsidy for assholes.
jmeister 5y ago
It’s not that simple. Read Matt Yglesias or David Shor on the damage some progressive non-profits have done to the communities they intend to help, and their broader cause. I see many such orgs on Scott’s list. Negative ROI.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  Could you explain what's negative about Scott's giving?
- akudha 5y ago
  Interested in learning more. Could you please list one or two orgs from her list and why you doubt them?
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  Thanks. I'm sure it's complicated. Will take some read.
antattack 5y ago
Depends on what charity/non profit does. Many waste money on fund-raising activities, scams, illegal activities and politics. [1][2][3] [1] https://www.charitywatch.org/charity-donating-articles/charitywatch-hall-of-shame https://www.charitywatch.org/charity-donating-articles/chari... [2]https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/11/admissions-scandal-causes-critics-question-whether-donor-money-also-influences-who https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/11/admissions-sc... [3]https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2019/donald-j-trump-pays-court-ordered-2-million-illegally-using-trump-foundation https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2019/donald-j-trump-pays-cou...

solveit 5y ago

Actually, I'm going to make this a top-level comment. Would one of the people claiming that she's just doing it for the tax benefits please explain to me, in excruciating detail, just how you would legally end up with more money by donating billions?

alisonkisk 5y ago
By donating appreciated stock, you can deduct it from income, twice. So approximately, if someone donates half their wealth she'll pay 0 income tax, which may be more than her tax burden on the whole amount. Getting this exactly accurate requires detailed accounting, as well as tax sheltering, deductible spending on first class travel as part of her charitable work, deductible payments to children and the value of buying favors and making her personal brand marketable, etc.
- solveit 5y ago
  Granting your premise that you can pay zero tax by donating half your wealth (which I'm guessing assumes you have zero cost basis for your assets), wouldn't that still leave you with... half your money? It doesn't seem worth it unless you're paying 50% in income/capital gains/whatever tax.
kolbe 5y ago
Firstly, you should specify what it means to have “more money.” For one, her wealth is (to an approximation) all Amazon stock at a zero basis. She can’t spend Amazon stock, so in reality, she doesn’t have the amount of money that say Forbes claims she has. She has a massive tax lability before she can turn this wealth into money. So, you should be asking “how does this minimize her net monetary position after liquidating Amazon stock?” To that, I don’t think it’s true. Yes, she can “double count” the donation, but that would require her taxes be over 50% to come out ahead. Given she has mostly zero basis long term cap gains, I don’t think she’s even close to that rate.

wombatmobile 5y ago

If we take Scott's words at face value and assume good faith, this is a significant political statement: "Putting large donors at the center of stories on social progress is a distortion of their role. Me, Dan, a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisors — we are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change. In this effort, we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others."

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Wolfenstein98k 5y ago

What a thoroughly empty statement. There is almost no content to this, it consists of blandly repeating the mantras of the day. This reinforces to me just how much the current fashion - constant obeisance to "equity" if not "equality" - is a replacement religion. Utterly empty, pure signalling. Edit - for instance: "Discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities has been deepening..." Since when? Measured how? Notice that every claim - which aligns with the religion of the day, genuflection to equity - is made as if it were an ironclad fact instead of a questionable opinion, while being juxtaposed with fake unending humility. "I don't know anything about how to solve inequity, so I worked with <progressive groups that claim to do so>, because I absolutely know that every one of their arguable political claims are true." She even claims Jeff's money was made through a "system that needs change" - how so? Almost all his money was made through stock appreciation. He made the actual dollars she is now giving away from investors in Amazon stock, not "black and brown bodies" or whatever the current victim group is. Edit: another instance I couldn't miss: "Over 700 million people globally still live in extreme poverty. To find solutions, we [...] prioritized organizations with [...] leaders of color, and a specific focus on empowering women and girls."

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

throwaway_45 5y ago

Wish she had got half of Bezos's money. Bezos's might be a great business man, but I don't think he is a great human being. This was an article 5 years ago about how amazon treats its employees: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-... It hasn't seemed to stop amazon from growing like crazy. He is the modern day Robber Barron, but maybe we have no Upton Sinclair or maybe people just don't care. Bezos seems to be using strategies from the early 20th century.

rayiner 5y ago

I’m very irritated about Scott’s foray into funding ethnic activist organizations. Her basic strategy is to give to organizations with expertise in an area, and she projects that onto giving money to identity-based organizations, on the theory that those organizations are “experts” in the ethnic groups they purport to speak for. > Because community-centered service is such a powerful catalyst and multiplier, we spent the first quarter of 2021 identifying and evaluating equity-oriented non-profit teams working in areas that have been neglected. The result was $2,739,000,000 in gifts to 286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked. But if you look at the list of say Asian organizations funded by Scott, many are Asian progressive activists. I’m a card carrying Asian and I’ve never heard of any of them. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, progressive activists are unrepresentative of the minority groups they purport to speak for: https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang For example, one organization Scott funded tries to teach Asian kids to dismantle the “model minority myth.” As far as I can tell, what they define as a “myth” is just how my Asian parents socialized their children to be. The problem is that selecting particular Asian identity groups for funding is itself an exercise in using wealth and privilege to pick winners and losers. In this case, Scott is showering Amazon bucks on one side of a debate within the Asian community itself, distorting that debate.

debrice 5y ago
I believe it’s also an indirect way of voting with your dollars. While they probably don’t owe that much $$$ to the IRS, I suspect this will likely cover some of it while letting them decide where their tax should go (I don’t really have an opinion on this strategy/system, just thought it could add to the discussion)

bunkydoo 5y ago

Wow, very interesting to see billionaires former wives going their own way with a large sum of cash and blogging about it...

deleted 5y ago

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seasily 5y ago

There is no nobility in spending money someone else earned on a bunch of silly virtue signaling. Good for her for marrying well, but let's not pretend this is about anything more than her desire for attention.

ratsforhorses 5y ago
Sounds very dismissive, did Bezos earn it or did (do) Amazon's workers? Besides from my understanding she was very supportive when he decided to leave his "cushy" well paid job...etc etc...also beyond the debate here (which I find very interesting) whether her donations will be effective... I think, hope, that her giving may open the floodgates of giving (especially seeing there's so much unrealized profit from stocks etc and... unpaid taxes) The article from Time below suggests her giving could actually be disruptive, let's hope effective too... One quote I liked particularly "Inside Philanthropy called her methods “simultaneously exciting and troubling to behold.” If all philanthropists worked the way she did—acting alone without a foundation or an obvious way of being contacted—grantmaking might be more efficient, but it would be less transparent, and possibly less diverse in its interests and approaches. (There might also be fewer jobs in the philanthropy business.)" https://time.com/6050873/mackenzie-scott-profile/ https://time.com/6050873/mackenzie-scott-profile/
- seasily 5y ago
  She outright spits on the way Bezos made his money, when he has one of the most honest and efficiency-enhancing paths to earning his fortune. Is the world a better place because Gates used blatantly illegal monopolistic practices to stifle innovation in the OS space? Or because Facebook is willing to engage in dirtier data-sharing, growth, and addictive product design? Whatever one thinks of those, Amazon created a market for the long tail of books, media, and then goods that simply didn't exist. And then followed it up with one of the most important platforms in the history of the tech and startup ecosystem. He's done more good with those than she'll ever do by giving his earnings to whatever is most fashionable at the moment.