MacKenzie Scott

MacKenzie Scott (née Tuttle, formerly Bezos; April 7, 1970)[1][2] is an American novelist and philanthropist. As of January 31, 2021, she has a net worth of US$57.5 billion, making her the third-wealthiest woman in the world, and the 20th-wealthiest individual overall.[3] She is known for her marriage and high-profile divorce from Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, and for her involvement in the founding of Amazon.[4] She is a signatory to the Giving Pledge, a commitment to give at least half of her wealth to charity.[5] In 2020, she made US$5.8 billion in charitable gifts, one of the largest annual distributions by a private individual to working charities.[6][7]

For the musician named Mackenzie Scott, see Torres (musician).

MacKenzie Scott
Born
MacKenzie Scott Tuttle

(1970-04-07) April 7, 1970
San Francisco, California, U.S.
EducationPrinceton University (BA)
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • Philanthropist
Net worthUS$57.5 billion (January 2021)
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1993; div. 2019)​
Children4
AwardsAmerican Book Award (2006)

In 2006, Scott won the American Book Award for her 2005 debut novel, The Testing of Luther Albright.[8] Her second novel, Traps, was published in 2013.[9] Scott has been executive director of Bystander Revolution since she founded it in 2014, and was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.[10][11]

Early life and education

MacKenzie Scott Tuttle was born on April 7, 1970, in San Francisco, California, to a financial planner father and homemaker mother.[12] She claims to have begun seriously writing at the age of 6, when she wrote a 142-page book, titled The Book Worm, which was destroyed in a flood.[4] In 1988, she graduated from Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.[13] In 1992, Tuttle earned her bachelor's degree in English at Princeton University, where she studied under the Nobel Laureate in Literature Toni Morrison, who described Tuttle was "one of the best students I've ever had in my creative writing classes".[4][12] She also worked as a research assistant to Morrison for the 1992 novel Jazz.[4]

Career

Literary career

After graduating, Scott applied to work for D. E. Shaw, a quantitative hedge fund in New York, as a research associate to "pay the bills while working on her novels."[14][15] She was interviewed by Jeff Bezos, who was then a vice-president at the firm. The interview marked her first meeting with him.[12][16][17]

In 2005, Scott wrote her debut novel, The Testing of Luther Albright, for which she won an American Book Award in 2006. She said that her first novel took her ten years to write, as she was helping Bezos build Amazon, giving birth to three children, and raising them.[18] Toni Morrison, her former teacher, reviewed the book as "a rarity: a sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart."[19] Her second novel, Traps, was published in 2013.[9]

Amazon

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]

Personal life
MacKenzie Scott (fifth from left) at the 2016 naturalization ceremony for her daughter.

Scott was married to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, from 1993 to 2019.[20][21] She met him while working as his assistant at D. E. Shaw in 1992; after three months of dating in New York they married and moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1994.[22] They have four children: three sons and one daughter adopted from China.[23]

Their communal property divorce in 2019 left MacKenzie with US$35.6 billion in Amazon stock while her ex-husband retained 75% of the couple's Amazon stock.[22] She became the third-wealthiest woman in the world and one of the wealthiest people overall in April 2019.[24][22] In July 2020, Scott was ranked the 22nd-richest person in the world by Forbes with a net worth estimated at $36 billion.[25] By September 2020, Scott was named the world's richest woman, and by December 2020, her net worth was estimated at $62 billion.[26][27]

After her divorce with Bezos, Scott initially kept her surname through marriage before reverting to her maiden name, Tuttle,[28] but later began going by the name MacKenzie Scott, with the surname derived from her middle name.[2]

Philanthropy

In May 2019, she signed the Giving Pledge, a charitable giving campaign in which she willingly committed to give away most of her wealth to charity over her lifetime or in her will, though her pledge is legally non-binding.[29]

In a July 2020 Medium post, Scott announced she had donated $1.7 billion to 116 non-profit organizations, with a focus on racial equality, LGBTQ+ equality, democracy, and climate change.[30] Her gifts to HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribal colleges and universities and other colleges surpass $800 million.[31][32]

In December 2020, less than six months later, Scott stated that she had donated a further $4.15 billion in the previous four months to 384 organizations, with a focus on providing support to people affected by the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and addressing long-term systemic inequities.[33] She noted that after July, she wanted her advisory team to give her wealth away faster as the United States struggled with the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 while billionaires' wealth continued to climb. Her team's focus was on "identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital."[34]

Altogether, her 2020 charitable giving totalled $5.8 billion, one of the biggest annual distributions by a private individual to working charities.[35][6]

Books
  • The Testing of Luther Albright. Fourth Estate. 2005. ISBN 978-0-00-719287-8.[36]
  • Traps. Knopf. 2013. ISBN 978-0-307-95973-7.[37]

See also

References
  1. Trotter, J.K. (January 22, 2019). "What we know, and don't know, about Jeff Bezos' religious beliefs". Insider. Retrieved February 12, 2020. ...marriage of Jeffrey Preston Bezos and MacKenzie Scott Tuttle.
  2. Statt, Nick (July 28, 2020). "MacKenzie Scott has already donated nearly $1.7 billion of her Amazon wealth since divorcing Jeff Bezos". The Verge. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  3. "Bloomberg Billionaires Index". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  4. Bromwich, Jonah Engel; Alter, Alexandra (January 12, 2019). "Who Is MacKenzie Scott? (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on June 13, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  5. Gren, Christy (May 29, 2019). "MacKenzie Bezos Signs The Giving Pledge and Pledges to give Half Her Fortune". Industry Leaders Magazine. Archived from the original on July 13, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  6. "MacKenzie Scott Gives Away $4.2 Billion in Four Months". Bloomberg.com. December 15, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  7. Vallely, Paul. "Jeff Bezos and Mackenzie Scott: Please stop giving. You're making me look bad". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  8. "MacKenzie Bezos and the Myth of the Lone Genius Founder". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  9. Bezos, MacKenzie (2013). Traps. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-95973-7. OCLC 804491168.
  10. "Bystander Revolution". Archived from the original on February 14, 2015. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  11. "MacKenzie Scott: The 100 Most Influential People of 2020". Time. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  12. Johnson, Rebecca (February 20, 2013). "MacKenzie Bezos: Writer, Mother of Four, and High-profile Wife". Vogue. Archived from the original on February 20, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
  13. "Alumni Award: Previous Recipients". The Hotchkiss School. 2004. Archived from the original on March 10, 2015. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  14. Abadi, Mark. "MacKenzie Bezos played a big role in the founding of Amazon and drove across the country with Jeff to start it". Business Insider. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  15. Cain, Áine. "Meet MacKenzie Bezos, who stands to become one of the world's richest women after her divorce, was one of the first Amazon employees, and has written 2 award-winning novels". Business Insider. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  16. Hubbard, Lauren (April 4, 2019). "Who Is Jeff Bezos's Ex-Wife, Novelist MacKenzie Bezos?". Town & Country. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  17. Abadi, Mark. "MacKenzie Bezos played a big role in the founding of Amazon and drove across the country with Jeff to start it". Business Insider. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  18. "7 Things To Know About MacKenzie Scott, The Woman Who Donated $6 Billion In 2020". British Vogue. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  19. Bromwich, Jonah Engel; Alter, Alexandra (January 12, 2019). "Who Is MacKenzie Scott? (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  20. Bayers, Chip (March 1999). "The Inner Bezos". Wired. Vol. 7 no. 3. Archived from the original on August 31, 2013. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
  21. Snider, Mike (January 9, 2019). "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and wife MacKenzie to divorce after 25 years of marriage". USA Today. Archived from the original on January 9, 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
  22. Bromwich, Jonah Engel; Alter, Alexandra (January 12, 2019). "Who Is MacKenzie Bezos?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on June 13, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  23. "Jeff Bezos Fast Facts". CNN. 2019. Archived from the original on December 12, 2018. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
  24. Schleifer, Theodore (April 4, 2019). "MacKenzie Bezos, with $35 billion, is now the world's third-wealthiest woman". Recode. Archived from the original on April 25, 2019. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  25. "MacKenzie Scott". Forbes. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
  26. Kulish, Nicholas (December 16, 2020). "MacKenzie Scott Announces $4.2 Billion More in Charitable Giving". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
  27. Business, Jazmin Goodwin, CNN. "MacKenzie Scott has become the world's richest woman". CNN. Retrieved September 10, 2020.
  28. "Jeff Bezos to keep 75 percent of couple's Amazon stock after finalizing divorce". CNBC. Archived from the original on April 4, 2019. Retrieved March 4, 2019.
  29. Schleifer, Theodore (May 28, 2019). "MacKenzie Bezos signed the philanthropic commitment her ex-husband spurned". Vox. Archived from the original on May 27, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  30. Iyengar, Rishi (July 28, 2020). "MacKenzie Scott, formerly Bezos, says she has given away $1.7 billion of her wealth so far". CNN Business. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  31. "'Transformational': MacKenzie Scott's gifts to HBCUs, other colleges surpass $800 million".
  32. "The historic MacKenzie Scott gifts to historically Black colleges and others: Which schools got how much".
  33. Kulish, Nicholas (December 16, 2020). "MacKenzie Scott Announces $4.2 Billion More in Charitable Giving". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on December 16, 2020. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
  34. Scott, MacKenzie (December 15, 2020). "384 Ways to Help". Medium. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  35. Dolan, Kerry A. "Mackenzie (Bezos) Scott Announces She's Donated $4.1 Billion To 384 Groups In Recent Months". Forbes. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
  36. Bezos, MacKenzie; Sutherland, Brian (2013). The Testing of Luther Albright (Unabridged ed.). Brilliance Audio. ISBN 978-1480569157.
  37. Bezos, MacKenzie (2013). Traps. New York: Vintage. ISBN 978-0307950291. Archived from the original on December 17, 2019. Retrieved September 7, 2019.

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