MACKENZIE SCOTT

MacKenzie Scott was a novelist (The Testing of Luther Albright, Traps) before she married Jeff Bezos. She was one of Amazon's first employees and helped build the company in its earliest days.

After their divorce in 2019, she received a 4% stake in Amazon worth approximately $38 billion at the time. What happened next shocked the philanthropy world: she signed the Giving Pledge and started donating at an unprecedented pace — $1.7 billion in 2020, $2.7 billion in a single round in 2021, $2 billion more shortly after.

By 2024, she had given away over $14 billion. Her approach is radically different from traditional billionaire philanthropy: she gives unrestricted gifts (no strings attached), trusts organizations to know what they need, and deliberately targets small and mid-size nonprofits that are often overlooked by major foundations.

Amazon (early employee, helped build the company), Giving Pledge signatory, author of two novels, Yield Giving (philanthropic platform)

Scott is not a traditional investor — she is primarily a philanthropist. Her financial assets are concentrated in Amazon stock (she has sold billions worth over the years to fund donations).

Her "investment" thesis is philanthropic: she gives large, unrestricted gifts to organizations working on food banks, racial equity, education access, gender equality, and economic mobility. She does not sit on boards, does not demand reports, and does not seek naming rights.

She trusts the organizations to spend the money where it matters most.

Redefining philanthropy. Scott proved that a billionaire can give away $14 billion in a few years without a massive bureaucratic foundation, without naming buildings after herself, and without any of the strings that usually come with mega-donations.

Her approach has embarrassed and challenged every other billionaire philanthropist.

Critics argue that Scott's rapid, unrestricted giving lacks accountability — some organizations reportedly struggled to absorb sudden multimillion-dollar gifts without the infrastructure to manage them effectively. The hands-off approach, while refreshing, has raised questions about whether all donations are creating maximum impact.

Trust the people closest to the problem. Scott believes that the organizations doing the work on the ground — food banks, community colleges, racial justice nonprofits — know better than any billionaire where money should go.

Her role is to write the check, not to direct the strategy.

Divorced Jeff Bezos in 2019. Briefly married Dan Jewett (science teacher, later divorced).

Four children (three biological, one adopted from China). Extremely private.

Princeton University (BA in English, studied under Toni Morrison).