4 ms·

There is the reality of wanting to keep control of your company. I can't guess Bezos' reasoning and philanthropy beyond that -- I don't have access to his taxes

There is the reality of wanting to keep control of your company. I can't guess Bezos' reasoning and philanthropy beyond that -- I don't have access to his taxes to state if he gives some amount secretly or not. I would be more surprised than you if he doesn't give anything as there is a substantial tax incentive. But a lot of people give away or become art benefactors in the U.S. because taxes. At the end of the day, I would suggest we don't wait for anyone to feel bad about us to give us philanthropy. If they do great, but if they don't we should take care of our society's kids.

onion2k 5y ago
There is the reality of wanting to keep control of your company. Jeff owns about 10% of Amazon in shares that have ordinary voting rights. He stood down as CEO a little while ago. Retaining control is not the reason, because he doesn't have control.
- eftychis 5y ago
  Sure. He is still the executive chair of the board and the largest stakeholder. There are different type of board members in companies -- some are "independent" -- essentially free floating and attaching their vote to the "top dog." There was even a top article on hacker news describing how to keep track of your board and what the board does really. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-amazon-shareholders-amzn.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-... If you read the summary above, you will note that as part of the settlement Bezos kept the voting rights of their communal stock, she got the ownership of 25% of that stock which was 4% of total. Why do that if it doesn't matter? Note there are only three insiders on the board and only Bezos has above 1%. She could have gotten a board seat if she wanted to I guess -- although things would probably be "interesting." P.S. If one had a dirty mind, and depending how the contract was written, one could say Scott was selling the stock to remove votes from Bezos. Otherwise, the efficient way would be to borrow money against your stock, sell some later perhaps to cover the low to no interest rate you would get etc. Generally at these scales you only sell stock to diversify, income taxes(rsus/options), or cover interest (and usually not even for that). (Imagine 4% of the Amazon stock up for sale in a matter of weeks.)
  - ivalm 5y ago
    On average ~0.5% of amzn trades every day, with some days going up to 1.5%. 4% in a matter of weeks is honestly not going to have too major of impact.
    - eftychis 5y ago
      These are not additive however. If you are a daytrader for instance you will buy and sell, say amazon, multiple times in a week, and will clear your portfolio over the weekend or holidays etc. If you do statistical arbitrage/mispricing you keep for weeks usually and you have to account for slippage. (You always have to account for slippage.) So a 0.5% trading back and forth trying to converge on a price and meet some new demand either way is stable state and it can involve the same players (buyers/sellers incl. market makers). Now imagine if the market suddenly demands an extra 5-10 billion of dollars per week on top of the existing stable demand. The money has to be introduced in the market somehow. It means that for me it must be worth it more to buy amazon over something else in my investing horizon. And even with margin I expect this is going to raise the collateral the clearing houses would require. Now also imagine a SEC entry (form 4) stating that 4% is dropping on the market. A recent example is Elon Musk with Tesla and he tricked people into thinking it was their choice and to my knowledge he still has not sold that whole 10% of his position.(Not 10% of the company...)

onion2k 5y ago

There is the reality of wanting to keep control of your company. Jeff owns about 10% of Amazon in shares that have ordinary voting rights. He stood down as CEO a little while ago. Retaining control is not the reason, because he doesn't have control.

eftychis 5y ago
Sure. He is still the executive chair of the board and the largest stakeholder. There are different type of board members in companies -- some are "independent" -- essentially free floating and attaching their vote to the "top dog." There was even a top article on hacker news describing how to keep track of your board and what the board does really. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-amazon-shareholders-amzn.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-... If you read the summary above, you will note that as part of the settlement Bezos kept the voting rights of their communal stock, she got the ownership of 25% of that stock which was 4% of total. Why do that if it doesn't matter? Note there are only three insiders on the board and only Bezos has above 1%. She could have gotten a board seat if she wanted to I guess -- although things would probably be "interesting." P.S. If one had a dirty mind, and depending how the contract was written, one could say Scott was selling the stock to remove votes from Bezos. Otherwise, the efficient way would be to borrow money against your stock, sell some later perhaps to cover the low to no interest rate you would get etc. Generally at these scales you only sell stock to diversify, income taxes(rsus/options), or cover interest (and usually not even for that). (Imagine 4% of the Amazon stock up for sale in a matter of weeks.)
- ivalm 5y ago
  On average ~0.5% of amzn trades every day, with some days going up to 1.5%. 4% in a matter of weeks is honestly not going to have too major of impact.
  - eftychis 5y ago
    These are not additive however. If you are a daytrader for instance you will buy and sell, say amazon, multiple times in a week, and will clear your portfolio over the weekend or holidays etc. If you do statistical arbitrage/mispricing you keep for weeks usually and you have to account for slippage. (You always have to account for slippage.) So a 0.5% trading back and forth trying to converge on a price and meet some new demand either way is stable state and it can involve the same players (buyers/sellers incl. market makers). Now imagine if the market suddenly demands an extra 5-10 billion of dollars per week on top of the existing stable demand. The money has to be introduced in the market somehow. It means that for me it must be worth it more to buy amazon over something else in my investing horizon. And even with margin I expect this is going to raise the collateral the clearing houses would require. Now also imagine a SEC entry (form 4) stating that 4% is dropping on the market. A recent example is Elon Musk with Tesla and he tricked people into thinking it was their choice and to my knowledge he still has not sold that whole 10% of his position.(Not 10% of the company...)