The quietest billionaire
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This is exactly what I would do in her shoes, or even with a much more modest fortune.
Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, walked away with $38 billion after the divorce.
What did she do with the money? She gave away $14 billion in 4 years. She’s been giving it away faster than anyone in history.
MacKenzie Scott could have played the billionaire game: hedge funds, private jets, philanthropy galas. Instead, she rewrote the rulebook.
Since 2019, she’s given away more than $14 billion to over 1,600 organizations.
No strings. No naming rights. No 200-page grant proposals. Just trust.
Community colleges. Food banks. Racial justice groups. Women’s shelters. The kinds of organizations that don’t usually get billionaires on the phone.
Her model is radical in its simplicity:- Give big
- Give fast
- Step out of the spotlight
She doesn’t announce where she’s going next.
She doesn’t sit on panels.
She doesn’t even run a foundation.
She signs a check, walks away, and in a world where philanthropy is often theater, that’s the part that hits hardest. MacKenzie Scott is proving you can change lives at scale without turning it into a performance.
The quietest billionaire in America might just be the one making the loudest impact.
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On the surface, that sounds lovely, but…
Organizations are like people and many can be ruined by money. The opportunity for fraud and abuse are way too high and even if it’s not outright fraud, it can still lead to mismanagement, which can be just as harmful. Making it rain like Bill at a strip club might be fun, but it’s not necessarily actually accomplishing anything. Those grant applications are a pain in the ass, but they do serve a purpose.
And her pet project of racial justice groups are often outright evil…
The Brad
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On the surface, that sounds lovely, but…
Organizations are like people and many can be ruined by money. The opportunity for fraud and abuse are way too high and even if it’s not outright fraud, it can still lead to mismanagement, which can be just as harmful. Making it rain like Bill at a strip club might be fun, but it’s not necessarily actually accomplishing anything. Those grant applications are a pain in the ass, but they do serve a purpose.
And her pet project of racial justice groups are often outright evil…
@LuFins-Dad said in The quietest billionaire:
Organizations are like people and many can be ruined by money. The opportunity for fraud and abuse are way too high and even if it’s not outright fraud, it can still lead to mismanagement, which can be just as harmful. Making it rain like Bill at a strip club might be fun, but it’s not necessarily actually accomplishing anything. Those grant applications are a pain in the ass, but they do serve a purpose.
At some point, the donor needs to ask herself, "can I do it better than the current team managing this charity." If you select the charities right, oftentimes the answer is "no," and it then follows that the donor should step aside and let the people who can do it better do it.
