MacKenzie Scott, an American novelist, and philanthropist has an estimated net worth of
$48.9 billion according to Forbes as of 2022.
She shot to the limelight when the news of her divorce from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon Inc was announced in 2019. She was formerly known as MacKenzie Bezos.
She made an announcement on 23rd March that she has given away approximately $3.8 billion to 465 organizations over the last 9 months. The list of recipients includes a wide range of non-profit organizations. She has donated more than $12 billion to date in four rounds of funding.
Scott wrote, “It’s easy to think of different groups struggling within the same systems as not only separate but also opposing. 465 non-profits converting $3,863,125,000 into meaningful services for others. Our team’s focus over these last nine months has included some new areas, but as always our aim has been to support the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds. The cause of equity has no sides.”
Excited to share this list of remarkable organizations. https://t.co/qRGRlAqVxb
— MacKenzie Scott (@mackenziescott) March 23, 2022
Following the announcement of this big donation from MacKenzie Scott, people are trying to dig out details about her net worth.
Meeting her first husband, Jeff Bezos
Born in 1970 in San Francisco in the USA, post completion of school she passed out from Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in English. She met Jeff Bezos when she was working for D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund company as an administrative assistant.
MacKenzie and Jeff married in 1993 and were involved with Amazon when the company was set up initially.
The success story of Amazon
Jeff was attracted by the newly forming “world wide web” at the time of their marriage. Jeff was of the opinion that an online “e-commerce” store will do wonders and he settled on an online bookstore.
MacKenzie played a critical role in motivating Jeff to pursue his dream. Jeff and MacKenzie mutually made the decision to leave their respective cozy jobs in the year 1994 and relocate to Seattle to make their dream come true.
The couple brainstormed a list of several products that could be sold online and finally settled on books as there is no risk of shelf life.
In 1994, Amazon was founded from their Seattle garage where MacKenzie served as Amazon’s bookkeeper and secretary. Jeff pulled in seed investment of $300,000 from his parents to start Amazon.
Her other interests
MacKenzie used to take night classes at the University of Washington in fiction writing. It took more than 10 years for her to release her own fictional novel titled “The Testing of Luther Albright”. The book did not achieve commercial success as it sold just less than 2,000 copies. She then released her second book titled “Traps” in 2013.
Divorce Settlement
After their divorce in 2019, MacKenzie received common stock of Amazon Inc as part of a settlement which was estimated to be worth about $35 billion at that time.
She became the world’s richest woman on 13th July 2020 when Amazon stock broke $3,300 a share, albeit for a brief period as the share price of Amazon did not sustain at higher levels.
She recently remarried high school science teacher Dan Jewett in March 2021. Dan works at the exclusive Lakeside School, which counts Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen as alumni.
