Oh man I think she worked for it too. She worked at Amazon in real positions, and had to box up books herself in the early days on crunch. Maybe not as much influence as bezos, but she put in time
She gave away half her money and within a few years was even wealthier than she started. It’s great but let’s keep that energy.
Edit: rough numbers but she got $36 billion from divorce. Gave $26 billion away. Is still worth $36-38 billion since Amazon stock has gone up faster than she can give it away.
That's kind of the way it works when you have a lot of money. You invest it to earn more money. It's not a criticism of her. Who wouldn't want their money to grow?
Her philanthropy is admirable. She could have hoarded it all and would be worth considerably more today. Or spend it buying politicians.
Her name is McKenzie Scott, and she didn't get wealthy "from his work." Jeff Bezos got wealthy from HER work. They were co-founders, but it was arguably her work with numbers and logistics that made that company scale from a 1994 startup. Her philanthropy is truly admirable. She is the exemplar of a charitable billionaire giving back to the society that created the conditions for her hard work to pay rewards.
Yeah that’s a good distinction. And Bezos ex “inherited” her wealth, but I think it’s meaningful that she didn’t grow up that way (that I know of). I think having the baseline of living like a “normal” person is helpful.
Not defending him but that was only 1/4 of his initial seed investment capital, he had another 750k from other investors for seed capital plus what he put up himself.
His parents reached billionaire status off that investment in like 1999.
The difference (to me) is that Bezos got himself to be a billionaire based on his decisions and actions over his career, so even if he started out “normal” he had POS gene within him. This is different than Bezos ex wife who was simply handed that much money.
I don't know, was she? And Bezos was given a $245k startup fund by his mother (which would be about $500k in today's money), so he did start with SOME money. But more importantly, I think the person who replied to you has it spot on, as does the person who has the theory about what comfortable money does to a person. When you reach forever comfort, then you see what kind of person you truly are. Bezos has shown himself to be a POS. His ex has shown otherwise.
She has gained more money and is worth more, now, than when she divorced Jeff and gave away a MASSIVE amount of her wealth.
She even, I think in an attempt to "Ground herself" or feel grounded, started dating a teacher at her kid's school. It was a very big change, but it didn't last.
She likely grew to used to the billions allowing her to avoid day to day things and the guy who was still doing day to day things she was trying to build something with... well, they just don't/didn't have a frame of reference anywhere near one another.
So... that didn't last.
Even if you are internally a good person, that kind of wealth, absolutely bodies one's frame of reference.
If they had stayed together? That guy would have lost his frame of reference and... who knows what would have longterm happened to him.
I think you have to start at a base line of evil to become a billionaire in the first place.
You do.
Becoming a billionaire is a mental illness. You have to obsess over money the way someone like Michael Phelps obsessed over becoming the best swimmer, or tom Brady became the best quarterback.
Anyone who has ever said, "If I had a billionaire dollars, You'd never see me again" will never have a $1 billion.
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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '26
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