Amazon Co-founder Mackenzie quietly gave over $4B to 384 organizations in 2020(mackenzie-scott.medium.com)
mackenzie-scott.medium.com
Amazon Co-founder Mackenzie quietly gave over $4B to 384 organizations in 2020
https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/384-ways-to-help-45d0b9ac6ad8
110 comments
Co-founder? I wasn't aware of that
I didn't realize this either, so I looked up her wikipedia page:
"In 1993, Scott and Bezos were married, and in 1994, they both left D. E. Shaw, moved to Seattle, and started Amazon. Scott was one of Amazon's first employees, and was heavily involved in Amazon's early days, working on the company's name, business plan, accounts and shipping early orders.[4][8] She also negotiated the company's first freight contract.[8] When Amazon began to succeed, Scott took a less involved role in the business, preferring to focus on her family and literary career.[4]"
"In 1993, Scott and Bezos were married, and in 1994, they both left D. E. Shaw, moved to Seattle, and started Amazon. Scott was one of Amazon's first employees, and was heavily involved in Amazon's early days, working on the company's name, business plan, accounts and shipping early orders.[4][8] She also negotiated the company's first freight contract.[8] When Amazon began to succeed, Scott took a less involved role in the business, preferring to focus on her family and literary career.[4]"
Scott was one of Amazon's first employees
Employee != co-founder.
I don’t think anyone thinks of Mackenzie as an Amazon co-founder (nor have I read anywhere other than this editorialized title).
That’s not to play down her involvement and contribution to Amazon in its early days, but it’s disingenuous to call her a co-founder.
Employee != co-founder.
I don’t think anyone thinks of Mackenzie as an Amazon co-founder (nor have I read anywhere other than this editorialized title).
That’s not to play down her involvement and contribution to Amazon in its early days, but it’s disingenuous to call her a co-founder.
Seems like an irrelevant thing to argue about. The submitter clearly set it up to create engagement on the submission. I hate to have to participate and therefore perpetuate it but we're all suckers for having reacted to the bait like this. Maybe knowing we're suckers will stop us from being suckers the next time a submitter pulls this.
This happens on Reddit too. If you post something slightly incorrect or even a misspelling, it'll give it that first flurry of engagement which gives it a better chance of striking gold.
> but it’s disingenuous to call her a co-founder.
looks like the submitter called here that, possibly to create a flamewar like this.
looks like the submitter called here that, possibly to create a flamewar like this.
Her Wiki was recently changed to call her that too.
She doesn't call herself "cofounder", nor has any news outlet, PR piece, or anything like that. I assume the submitter here just editorialized the title a bit for attention.
Yes. She didn't get the money only for being "the wife" as many people think.
She worked at Amazon and she is one of the people that made the company succeed.
She worked at Amazon and she is one of the people that made the company succeed.
Sure, and there were many early employees at Google that made it succeed.
Those early employees however are not called co-founders.
Those early employees however are not called co-founders.
But everything she got in the divorce settlement would be for being "the spouse". Presumably her compensation from the early days at amazon were just considered her personal assets.
I think it's more complicated then that. For example, me and my wife bought a car together, but it's only in my name. Since we're married, it doesn't matter that it be only in my name, we both own it 100/100 based on our marriage contract. So we don't even bother putting everything in each other's name.
I suspect Amazon was a similar afair. They both quit their job and moved city to start and work on Amazon. When the company began, she was working on it with Bezos, both together.
It's possible that they then decided similarly not to bother with adding her name to the company officially, since as they were married that doesn't really matter. In fact, IANAL, but I'd suspect it might be complicated to do so, since by your marriage you already have a contract with one another, and as a contractual business partner you'd have another contract, and I wouldn't be surprised if that gets messy as both contract can easily conflict and the marriage contract has special status.
So I think it's fair to consider her a co-founder, in that she acted as one, took all the same risks, quit her job, moved city, worked on starting the company, put her financials at risk and invested her own money into it, etc. Even though she's not really a co-founder as registered in the company itself.
I suspect Amazon was a similar afair. They both quit their job and moved city to start and work on Amazon. When the company began, she was working on it with Bezos, both together.
It's possible that they then decided similarly not to bother with adding her name to the company officially, since as they were married that doesn't really matter. In fact, IANAL, but I'd suspect it might be complicated to do so, since by your marriage you already have a contract with one another, and as a contractual business partner you'd have another contract, and I wouldn't be surprised if that gets messy as both contract can easily conflict and the marriage contract has special status.
So I think it's fair to consider her a co-founder, in that she acted as one, took all the same risks, quit her job, moved city, worked on starting the company, put her financials at risk and invested her own money into it, etc. Even though she's not really a co-founder as registered in the company itself.
Well, from the other side Jeff got the rest for being her spouse. They were married before Amazon was founded, so they were involved in that as a couple. And she also left job and moved for founding Amazon.
A married couple in a common property state doesn’t have personal assets.
That doesn't explain how Jeff retained 75% of his shares and 100% of his voting control in the divorce then.
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If she didn't get the money for being Jeff's wife then how did she get the money.
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She technically is. The marriage contract is a 50/50 split and such a share gives one the "founder" title. The actual contributions, circumstances and everything else doesn't matter. Bezos was a VP (at another firm) at the time they married and read the contract before he signed it.
By your logic, the President’s spouse is co-President.
If presidency was an asset that could be split, then yes, she could get half by divorce.
The founder's shares are an asset that can be split, but the founder's status as founder is not. The founder's ex-spouse can claim a share of their ownership in the company they founded, but not a share of the status of founder, nor corporate offices. (The CEO's ex-spouse will likely end up with a decent percentage of the stock the CEO owns, but 0% of the actual corporate office and job title of CEO.)
Only after divorce.
> "quietly"
Is a link to the blog of said co-founder, where she discusses her philanthropy.
Her Wikipedia page describes her as "an American novelist and philanthropist" and the largest section of that page is entitled "Philanthropy".
I don't mean to criticize Mackenzie for this, just the unnecessary (and inaccurate) editorializing of the HN post title.
Is a link to the blog of said co-founder, where she discusses her philanthropy.
Her Wikipedia page describes her as "an American novelist and philanthropist" and the largest section of that page is entitled "Philanthropy".
I don't mean to criticize Mackenzie for this, just the unnecessary (and inaccurate) editorializing of the HN post title.
Hi dang and/or moderators, the title of Ms. Scott's article is "384 ways to help" and I think that that is a perfectly good link text. I don't fault the submitter for admiring Mackenzie Scott but editorializing in links is a problematic practice which shouldn't be encouraged.
Worth noting her name in the link text is also mis-spelled (mis-capitalised), and I'm not sure it's appropriate to use only her first name.
She goes by MacKenzie Scott.
She goes by MacKenzie Scott.
I often read that editing a title is discouraged.
However: What should "384 ways to help?" tell me? It's clickbait.
The edited title at least gives me an idea what the content is all about. It's so good it actually serves as a summary.
However: What should "384 ways to help?" tell me? It's clickbait.
The edited title at least gives me an idea what the content is all about. It's so good it actually serves as a summary.
The most effective way to contact the mods is through the Contact link in the footer.
Someone posted it with that title 10 days ago. It got 2 upvotes
The quietly is less about communication with the public than it is communication with the non-profits about the gifts. No weeks/months-long crafting of the gift announcement message. No extended negotiation about how the gift is going to be used. Hint, right now every non-profit is hurting for unrestricted genop money.
It's incredibly refreshing.
It's incredibly refreshing.
What does genop mean? I couldn't find it on Google
I believe it means 'general operations' - Ms Scott's gifts have been unrestricted, with atypically light reporting requirements. Basically, she's trusting the non-profit recipients of her donations to know how to spend their money to accomplish their missions and isn't making them bend over backwards to appease her.
General operations if I’m presuming jargon. Which I think is the bigger deal with her donations than anything else.
A guess: general operations
I get your point but this is a different context than how you or I might make a charitable donation - this is celebrity billionaire land.
There is a difference in this strange other land between publishing the donations with some explanations so those interested can find out, and the usual way, which involves PR pieces, interviews abs dinner plates at a grand a pop.
I mean I had no idea she had done this, yet I watched a big robo-ball follow Jeff around a garden.
So yeah, I would think that, in this weird land, that was actually, quiet :-)
There is a difference in this strange other land between publishing the donations with some explanations so those interested can find out, and the usual way, which involves PR pieces, interviews abs dinner plates at a grand a pop.
I mean I had no idea she had done this, yet I watched a big robo-ball follow Jeff around a garden.
So yeah, I would think that, in this weird land, that was actually, quiet :-)
No idea why you got downvoted. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate your thoughts.
Edit: and now I’m getting downvoted. C’mon HN, be more diverse than this.
Edit: and now I’m getting downvoted. C’mon HN, be more diverse than this.
> "No idea why you got downvoted."
Better to just give a compensatory upvote and move on. Commenting on downvotes helps no one and is against the guide lines.
Better to just give a compensatory upvote and move on. Commenting on downvotes helps no one and is against the guide lines.
Honestly, don't sweat the downvotes. Just wait for smarter people to read it ;-)
I agree with your point here - this reminds me the "that girl in college who bought fast food for homeless people because she's a good person... and then told everyone how much of a good person she was for doing it" meme.
Charitable donations are great, more people should donate to private charities that benefit their communities as I strongly believe many of these organizations genuinely do more good than government programs! However, her blog screams "look how much money I gave away" / "I'm one of the good rich people - please don't kill me when you decide to pillage the rich".
Charitable donations are great, more people should donate to private charities that benefit their communities as I strongly believe many of these organizations genuinely do more good than government programs! However, her blog screams "look how much money I gave away" / "I'm one of the good rich people - please don't kill me when you decide to pillage the rich".
The result over the last four months has been $4,158,500,000 in gifts to 384 organizations across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C. Some are filling basic needs: food banks, emergency relief funds, and support services for those most vulnerable. Others are addressing long-term systemic inequities that have been deepened by the crisis: debt relief, employment training, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, education for historically marginalized and underserved people, civil rights advocacy groups, and legal defense funds that take on institutional discrimination.
I love that she's giving the money to small organisations apparently with no strings attached and where cash is needed. Seems great in contrast to the paternalistic micromanagement on issues with questionable efficacy that so many other philanthropists engage in.
I love that she's giving the money to small organisations apparently with no strings attached and where cash is needed. Seems great in contrast to the paternalistic micromanagement on issues with questionable efficacy that so many other philanthropists engage in.
It's great to cut the red tape -- donors complain about how so many nonprofits have such bureaucracy diverting funds from the mission, while at the same time requiring extensive disclosures that necessitate said bureaucracy.
Her giving seems focused on direct relief. If you had to divide philanthropy into just two camps, you could consider one camp is direct relief of societal symptoms and the other is advocacy to fix the underlying societal problems. For example, giving a man a fish to eat versus teaching fishing lessons.
It's easy to think that direct relief is ineffective compared to systemic change. When you get into the details, though, implementing societal change is a lot more complicated. You have the Koch brothers and George Soros both trying to improve societies through public advocacy, in opposite directions, with lots of failed projects along the way. While direct relief may not create long-term solutions, the real world benefits are more directly measurable.
In a plague year (followed by new crises in the new year), regardless of critiques of her approach, I hope we can all appreciate her compassionate giving.
Her giving seems focused on direct relief. If you had to divide philanthropy into just two camps, you could consider one camp is direct relief of societal symptoms and the other is advocacy to fix the underlying societal problems. For example, giving a man a fish to eat versus teaching fishing lessons.
It's easy to think that direct relief is ineffective compared to systemic change. When you get into the details, though, implementing societal change is a lot more complicated. You have the Koch brothers and George Soros both trying to improve societies through public advocacy, in opposite directions, with lots of failed projects along the way. While direct relief may not create long-term solutions, the real world benefits are more directly measurable.
In a plague year (followed by new crises in the new year), regardless of critiques of her approach, I hope we can all appreciate her compassionate giving.
She has given a pile to HBCUs. The Washington Post listed 2020 gifts to colleges and universities in the area last week, and she gave tens of millions to each of Morgan State, Bowie State, and University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Maryland. I believe she gave a bunch to Howard, and I did read that she gave a lot to Hampton University.
another benefit of her decision is not forcing small 501Cs to produce and track down longggg grant proposals. I know a ton of <1mm 3-5 people orgs that have someone full time doing grant writing. That costs significant money.
In May 2019, Mackenzie Scott signed the Giving Pledge [0], a charitable giving campaign launched in 2010 with the announcement of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as members and evangelistic founders [1].
Almost none of the signees have as of yet made significant progress towards upholding their pledge to give away half of their wealth, instead only accumulating more of it. Since the pledge was created in 2010, the wealth of the donors has not decreased but has instead increased from a combined $376 billion in 2010 to a combined $734 billion in 2020 [2]. Many who have made significant donations, have done so to private foundations, which often pay salaries to their family members and have no obligation by law to actually spend the wealth on active charity organisations.[citation needed]
Donations in general are a topic of public debate, in part, because in many countries they are tax-deductible, which means donations reduce tax obligations for individuals, and tax revenue for government.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacKenzie_Scott
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
[2] https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#5f078cfc3d78
Almost none of the signees have as of yet made significant progress towards upholding their pledge to give away half of their wealth, instead only accumulating more of it. Since the pledge was created in 2010, the wealth of the donors has not decreased but has instead increased from a combined $376 billion in 2010 to a combined $734 billion in 2020 [2]. Many who have made significant donations, have done so to private foundations, which often pay salaries to their family members and have no obligation by law to actually spend the wealth on active charity organisations.[citation needed]
Donations in general are a topic of public debate, in part, because in many countries they are tax-deductible, which means donations reduce tax obligations for individuals, and tax revenue for government.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacKenzie_Scott
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
[2] https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#5f078cfc3d78
The best steelman I can come up with is that it's very difficult to give away that many billions effectively.
Give one billion to every charity on givewell's list, and now those have more money than can effectively spend in the foreseeable future. Yet you wil have spent nowhere close to your entire fortune.
While I don't understand why billionaires haven't done so yet, I can understand why it may make sense to be patient and search for great charitable opportunities.
Give one billion to every charity on givewell's list, and now those have more money than can effectively spend in the foreseeable future. Yet you wil have spent nowhere close to your entire fortune.
While I don't understand why billionaires haven't done so yet, I can understand why it may make sense to be patient and search for great charitable opportunities.
You can give away a lot of money while still making more, particularly in a year like 2020.
I don't think they thought they were agreeing to give away half of every future dollar.
They are giving billions away, and trying to look for ways to condemn what they're doing is only punishing a good thing. Never punish a behaviour you want more of.
PS the tax deduction thing is envious garbage - you can only deduct the amount of tax on the dollars you donate (ie your top marginal tax rate). So you have to lose a LOT more than you "gain" through deduction. You don't come out ahead.
And you should never have been taxed because you didn't keep the dollar.
I don't think they thought they were agreeing to give away half of every future dollar.
They are giving billions away, and trying to look for ways to condemn what they're doing is only punishing a good thing. Never punish a behaviour you want more of.
PS the tax deduction thing is envious garbage - you can only deduct the amount of tax on the dollars you donate (ie your top marginal tax rate). So you have to lose a LOT more than you "gain" through deduction. You don't come out ahead.
And you should never have been taxed because you didn't keep the dollar.
Excellent points ... I would also point out though that a lot of the money donated represents wealth that they "earned" through fancy international corporate tax avoidance schemes that are taught to students at business schools like the MIT Sloan School of Management, among others, which famously produced this crook:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-14/mit-sloan...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-14/mit-sloan...
> Donations in general are a topic of public debate, in part, because in many countries they are tax-deductible, which means donations reduce tax obligations for individuals, and tax revenue for government.
Really? Let’s say your top marginal tax rate is 40%. That means when you donate a dollar, you get 40 cents back in taxes. When given the choice between 40 cents going to the government or one dollar going to a billionaire-chosen charity, I’d pick the charity every time.
If you agree with that, then it doesn’t make sense to criticize donations on the basis that they reduce tax revenue. (it may still make sense to change the law regarding deductions, however)
If you disagree with that, I would be interested to hear your reasoning. It seems to me that people like Bill Gates have actually donated a pretty large chunk of their wealth to truly good causes. Would you have preferred 40% of this money go to the government instead and Gates to have kept the rest? Or is the average billionaire donation much less effective than Gates’?
Really? Let’s say your top marginal tax rate is 40%. That means when you donate a dollar, you get 40 cents back in taxes. When given the choice between 40 cents going to the government or one dollar going to a billionaire-chosen charity, I’d pick the charity every time.
If you agree with that, then it doesn’t make sense to criticize donations on the basis that they reduce tax revenue. (it may still make sense to change the law regarding deductions, however)
If you disagree with that, I would be interested to hear your reasoning. It seems to me that people like Bill Gates have actually donated a pretty large chunk of their wealth to truly good causes. Would you have preferred 40% of this money go to the government instead and Gates to have kept the rest? Or is the average billionaire donation much less effective than Gates’?
The context here is that these people have publicly made the "Giving Pledge" to reduce their assets by half to improve society, and yet their assets have doubled in a short time. That means they are underperforming based on their own intent, and casts doubt on the selfless virtue component of the Giving Pledge.
Quietly? I remember reading multiple articles about it.
It's a bit cynical, but you may find Larry David's bit on anonymous giving amusing https://youtu.be/De90ozOOquY
That’s not cynical, that’s real. I loved it.
This headline appears to have been written by whoever posted it to HN.
The giving itself was quiet, probably out of a desire to avoid being mobbed with funding requests. Then it was publicized after the fact.
The title to this post should be "Mackenzie Scott gave over $4B to 384 organizations in 2020" or "384 Ways to Help"
The most interesting thing to me is that the gifts are unrestricted with no reporting requirements. (Also unsolicited)
An enormous amount of philanthropic money ostensibly meant to support the marginalized ends up spent on paperwork and "middle management" to do applications, book-keeping for allocation and reporting requirements, and reporting -- and the salaries for the people doing all that, who are not usually the 'marginalized' intended to support.
Eliminating all that with unrestricted gifts with no reporting requiremens is huge -- and very unlike most of the "data-driven" "entrepeneurial giving" that is all the rage.
An enormous amount of philanthropic money ostensibly meant to support the marginalized ends up spent on paperwork and "middle management" to do applications, book-keeping for allocation and reporting requirements, and reporting -- and the salaries for the people doing all that, who are not usually the 'marginalized' intended to support.
Eliminating all that with unrestricted gifts with no reporting requiremens is huge -- and very unlike most of the "data-driven" "entrepeneurial giving" that is all the rage.
In that case you have no idea how the money is spent, right? Maybe it’s an improvement, but I’m inclined to say better the devil you know.
You cannot deny the “quiet” part that made it to the front of HN is a bit ironic.
I believe her donations are an admirable action, but I have heard about this from every source of news I visit.
I believe her donations are an admirable action, but I have heard about this from every source of news I visit.
It really is a staggering amount to give. A hospital near me is naming a wing after a person who gave $10 Million in recent years- by all means a massive amount of money. It's just hard to imagine that, times four thousand
How quiet is it, if we all know about it? Good for her! Brava, in fact, but "quietness" isn't part of this.
I have no doubt that this was a sincere move, from her heart.
I have no doubt that this was a sincere move, from her heart.
[deleted]
I recommend the title of this be changed to "Mackenzie Scott gave over $4B to 384 organizations in 2020"
throwoutttt(1)
In my opinion she should give some of that to the Amazon employees on the backs of which the vast fortune was made. Jeff and Mackenzie really fucked over the vast majority of people that work(ed) there usually through lies about RSU's, firing people before 90 days who were expecting health insurance, timing their pee breaks, etc.
Even if I agree that she has made a fortune on the backs of Amazon employees, I don't agree with this comment.
Here, MacKenzie Scott has made a choice to give money back to causes which support underprivileged people (which will doubtless include some of those same Amazon employees), which she did not have to.
Here, MacKenzie Scott has made a choice to give money back to causes which support underprivileged people (which will doubtless include some of those same Amazon employees), which she did not have to.
Right, it's better than just putting the money into the pockets of some hedge fund managers by buying stock.
But definitely worse than Amazon paying a better wage and not treating employees like robots.
But definitely worse than Amazon paying a better wage and not treating employees like robots.
Like the 4000 Amazon employees who get food stamps? I think she is probably plowing that money into leftist political organizations.
You seem confused. The ideas that you say above, that workers should get health insurance and shouldn't be timed on their toilet breaks (workers shouldn't be exploited) are quite literally "leftist" ideals.
Leftist as in leftist political elites. Leftists fucking hate working people.
> through lies about RSU's
Source?
Source?
Amazon employees only get 5% RSU's the first year, and will be pipped before they reach year 2 vesting.
bra-ket(5)
selfishgene(1)
thats an average of 10,416,666.67, or $10.41 Million per organization
... per day?
Per organization
$28,538.81 per organization, per day. :)
thanks - corrected
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[deleted]
Much better than giving it to the various governments, kudos to her for giving it away.