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Amazon Co-founder Mackenzie quietly gave over $4B to 384 organizations in 2020
- woah 6y agoCo-founder? I wasn't aware of that
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mushufasa 6y agoI 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]"
- andreilys 6y agoScott 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.
- dominotw 6y ago> but it’s disingenuous to call her a co-founder. looks like the submitter called here that, possibly to create a flamewar like this.
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoHer Wiki was recently changed to call her that too.
- renewiltord 6y agoSeems 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.
- casefields 6y agoThis 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.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Darmody 6y agoYes. 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.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- andreilys 6y agoSure, and there were many early employees at Google that made it succeed. Those early employees however are not called co-founders.
- oh_sigh 6y agoBut 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.
- cowsandmilk 6y agoA married couple in a common property state doesn’t have personal assets.
- oh_sigh 6y agoThat doesn't explain how Jeff retained 75% of his shares and 100% of his voting control in the divorce then.
- didibus 6y agoI 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.
- mgraczyk 6y agoShe 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.
- supertrope 6y agohttps://twitter.com/humantransit/status/1344334794008629249 https://twitter.com/humantransit/status/1344334794008629249
- frongpik 6y agoShe 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.
- skissane 6y agoBy your logic, the President’s spouse is co-President.
- al_chemist 6y agoOnly after divorce.
- frongpik 6y agoIf presidency was an asset that could be split, then yes, she could get half by divorce.
- skissane 6y agoThe 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.)
- Barrin92 6y agoThe 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.
- cafard 6y agoShe 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.
- mushufasa 6y agoIt'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.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoReminds me of this: http://m.nautil.us/blog/-larry-david-and-the-game-theory-of-anonymous-donations http://m.nautil.us/blog/-larry-david-and-the-game-theory-of-...
- meesterdude 6y agothats an average of 10,416,666.67, or $10.41 Million per organization
- Kiro 6y ago... per day?
- b34r 6y agoPer organization
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- meesterdude 6y agothanks - corrected
- meesterdude 6y ago$28,538.81 per organization, per day. :)
- one2know 6y agoIn 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.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago> through lies about RSU's Source?
- one2know 6y agoAmazon employees only get 5% RSU's the first year, and will be pipped before they reach year 2 vesting.
- throwaway2245 6y agoEven 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.
- grumple 6y agoRight, 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.
- one2know 6y agoLike the 4000 Amazon employees who get food stamps? I think she is probably plowing that money into leftist political organizations.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
- TheTrotters 6y agoQuietly? I remember reading multiple articles about it.
- cperciva 6y agoThe giving itself was quiet, probably out of a desire to avoid being mobbed with funding requests. Then it was publicized after the fact.
- throwaway2245 6y agoThis headline appears to have been written by whoever posted it to HN.
- _gtly 6y agoIt's a bit cynical, but you may find Larry David's bit on anonymous giving amusing https://youtu.be/De90ozOOquY https://youtu.be/De90ozOOquY
- leephillips 6y agoThat’s not cynical, that’s real. I loved it.
- throwoutttt 6y agoI guess we know where some of the George Floyd brick pallets came from now
- DeafSquid 6y agoFake news
- lucideer 6y ago> "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.
- lifeisstillgood 6y agoI 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 :-)
- dstick 6y agoNo 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.
- lifeisstillgood 6y agoHonestly, don't sweat the downvotes. Just wait for smarter people to read it ;-)
- grzm 6y ago> "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.
- escape_goat 6y agoHi 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.
- tmpxgdqrcKFuG 6y agoHey, Mrs Scott! Whatcha goin to do? Whatcha goin to do to make our dreams come true?!
- aardvark1 6y agoCofounder????
- economusty 6y agoMuch better than giving it to the various governments, kudos to her for giving it away.
- greatgirl 6y agoI recommend the title of this be changed to "Mackenzie Scott gave over $4B to 384 organizations in 2020"
- bra-ket 6y agoWith all those gazillions of charity money we, as a species, could've established Moon and Mars colonies ten times over. Instead it's sunk into giant black hole of bureaucracy and consulting fees.
- astrange 6y agoSometimes you can't do things with money. Going to Mars is one of them. Although Musk and Bezos are both trying, so you should be happy about that.
- grumple 6y ago$4B is not even close to enough to do either of those things. The Apollo program cost $283 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.
- bra-ket 6y agoI'm talking about gazilions in charity which goes to waste, with that $4B being a very small part of.
- jiofih 6y agoAnd how exactly would a moon colony help feed those people needing charity here on earth?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jiofih 6y agoTechnology improves though. You can expect SpaceX, and maybe BO, to have spent <20B once we get there.
- jiofih 6y agoBezos has invested around ~5B already in Blue Origin, so your expectations may need some calibration.
- fortran77 6y agoHow 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.
- miked85 6y agoThe title to this post should be "Mackenzie Scott gave over $4B to 384 organizations in 2020" or "384 Ways to Help"
- ffggvv 6y ago“cofounder” lol
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wombatmobile 6y agoIn 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacKenzie_Scott [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge [2] https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#5f078cfc3d78 https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#5f078cfc3d78
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoYou 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.
- selfishgene 6y agoExcellent 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-didnt-fire-professor-who-funneled-cash-to-madoff-scheme https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-14/mit-sloan...
- horstmeyer 6y agoBut, but, ... billionaires can't actually do anything positive with their wealth because they don't have money, it's all just in stocks!!!1!!
- DevKoala 6y agoYou 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.
- waylandsmithers 6y agoIt 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
- selfishgene 6y agoOn the topic of "quiet" donations, it's always worth remembering how Jeffrey Epstein's donations to MIT were marked "anonymous" by still-president Rafael Reif, after sending the convicted child rapist a personally signed thank-you note for them. In which case this recent discussion on HN is worth highlighting again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25442060 As well as how a thank-you note from former president of France Francois Mitterand was similarly used over the course of 30 years to help pedophile prize-winning author Gabriel Matzneff avoid prosecution for his writings on how much he enjoyed sexually molesting multiple boys in bed at the same time as young as 8 years of age on his trips to the Philippines: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/gabriel-matzneff-pedophilia-france.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/gabriel-matz...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jrochkind1 6y agoThe 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.
- anchpop 6y agoIn 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.
- dang 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25438443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25438443 also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23991169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23991169 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25437978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25437978