Mackenzie Scott Wiki – Biography
Mackenzie Scott has supported organizations like Black Girls CODE, Futures Without Violence, Movement for Black Lives, among many others, and has pledged to offer philanthropic support on an ongoing basis.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English from Princeton University in 1991, Scott worked for the quantitative hedge fund D.E. Shaw as an administrative assistant. It was there that she met Bezos, who was a senior vice-president at the company.
A 2013 Vogue article reveals that Scott was raised in San Francisco. Her father was a financial planner and her mother “cheerfully stayed home to cook meals and decorate the house.”
At Princeton, Scott studied underwriter Toni Morrison, who boasted to Vogue that Scott was, “one of the best students I’ve ever had in my creative-writing classes . . . really one of the best.”
The pledge was created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett in 2010 and aims to “shift social norms of philanthropy among the world’s wealthiest people,” according to the initiative’s website.
In a recent Medium article, Scott reflected on her decision to join the Giving Pledge. She wrote, “There’s no question in my mind that anyone’s personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others.”
She added, “I began work to complete my pledge with the belief that my life had yielded two assets that could be of particular value to others: the money these systems helped deliver to me, and a conviction that people who have experience with inequities are the ones best equipped to design solutions.”
Bezos has not signed the Giving Pledge.
Mackenzie Scott Age
Her age is unknown.
Husband & Children
The two became engaged within three months of dating. When they married, Bezos was 30 and Scott was 23.
Bezos and Scott were married for 25 years, and have four children together.
As part of the Divorce Settlement
After her divorce was finalized in 2019, Scott signed the Giving Pledge, which is a “commitment by the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to giving back.”
As part of the divorce settlement, Scott was awarded a quarter of Bezos’ Amazon shares, giving her a 4% stake in the company, which was worth more than $35 billion at the time, according to CNN.
Even with the settlement, the outlet pointed out, Bezos comes in at the top of the list of richest people in the world, with an estimated $118 billion.
The settlement also awarded Bezos all of the former couple’s joint holdings in the Washington Post and Blue Origin and gave Bezos sole voting power of the shares they controlled together.
Scott Wrote Her Debut Novel
Scott wrote her debut novel, The Testing of Luther Albright, in 2005. One year later, she received the American Book Award. According to the Before Columbus Foundation website, the American Book Awards offer no crash prize or financial commitments from the authors or their publishers.
In 2013, Scott published her second novel, Traps. ES quotes her as saying, “I am a better person when I am writing and I am probably a better mother because I can focus all that laser attention on these characters rather than worrying about my kids.”
In 2019, the New York Times published a feature on Scott, highlighting how she was Amazon’s first accountant and was heavily involved in the company’s evolution from an online bookseller to the powerhouse it is today.
Despite her fame, which was amplified following the announcement of her divorce from Bezos, Scott has maintained a private life, making, in the words of the New York Times, “infrequent forays into the public eye.”
Net Worth
As the fourth-richest woman in the world, it’s no surprise that Mackenzie Scott has made headlines for her philanthropic efforts. With an estimated net worth of $36 billion, according to Forbes, the now ex-wife of Jeff Bezos has donated $1.7 billion to 116 charitable causes over the past year.
According to Variety, Scott is reported to have obtained a $13 million “rundown home” next door to a Beverly Hills compound that the former couple also owned in the divorce.
In April, Bezos paid $165 million for the famed Jack Warner estate, which sits on a 10-acre compound in Beverly Hills, and more recent records obtained by the outlet show that Bezos has since purchased a $10 million home for an “adjacent property on a little-known side street.”
In the 1990s, Bezos purchased a number of homes in the Seattle area; he also owns four apartments in one Manhattan building.
