How Jeff Bezos' ex-wife Mackenzie Scott is world's away from his lavish Venice wedding - as she ponders Emily Dickinson poetry in essays on giving away her 'disproportionate' $38 billion divorce fortune

Daily Mail​

4 hours ago

As Jeff Bezos prepares to marry Lauren Sanchez during a lavish three-day Italian ceremony, his ex-wife Mackenzie Scott couldn't be further away from the opulent celebrations - in every sense.
The novelist, 55, became the world's richest woman after walking away with $38billion and a 4 percent stake in Amazon after their divorce in 2019 - but rather than live lavishly, she devoted herself to giving away her fortune.
Mackenzie has acknowledged that she has a 'disproportionate amount of money,' and won't stop donating 'until the safe is empty', in a series of personal essays on her website, Yield Giving, which are peppered with literary references.
Meanwhile, Jeff, 61, is set to tie-the-knot with Lauren, 55, at the 15th-century Madonna dell'Orto church in Venice's quaint Cannareggio district this week.
Their $20 million bash will begin Thursday and end on Saturday with around 90 private jets set to bring A-listers from show business, politics and finance to the widely-dubbed 'wedding of the century'.
In contrast Mackenzie maintains a low public profile, having already donated over $19 billion to more than 1600 charitable organizations.
While she has retained her fortune through the success of Amazon and personal business endeavors, she joined the ranks of the world's ultra-wealthy philanthropists as a signatory of the Giving Pledge in May 2019.
In essays shared to her website, she writes about her 'desire to be of service' and draws on poetry from Emily Dickinson and Rumi.
Following her divorce, Mackenzie shared a passage from Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, explaining how it had 'inspired her over the years.'
It read: 'Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book… The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now.
'Something more will arise for later, something better… Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.'
Reflecting on the piece, Mackenzie drew comparisons to her own life and 'impulse to give.'
She wrote: 'No drive has more positive ripple effects than the desire to be of service.
'In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share.'
In 2020, she reflected on the 'isolated' life lead by poet Emily Dickinson following the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.
Mackenzie highlighted the economic losses and the increased number of people living in poverty while the wealth of billionaires had multiplied.
That year, Amazon's share price saw Jeff becoming the first person have their fortune break the $200billion barrier after the COVID-19 outbreak sparked a surge in online ordering.
Mackenzie played a major role in Amazon's early development, with her stock in the company worth $63billion at the time.
The company saw its stock price rise nearly 80 per cent since the beginning of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic forced people to remain in their homes.
That year she increased her giving, explaining via Emily Dickinson's writings how she held on to 'hope' and how se could 'feed it' while helping American's through her charity work.
In 2021, Mackenzie discussed how she had been working to 'empower' the 286 organizations that her team had donated to.
She said how they were 'amplifying gifts by yielding control' and turned to 13th-century poet, Rumi, to explain.
The philanthropist wrote: 'My favorite verse by Rumi captures this well: 'A candle as it diminishes explains, Gathering more and more is not the way.
'"Burn, become light and heat and help. Melt.'
MacKenzie, who grew up in San Francisco, has been described as a shy child who spent much time alone in her room writing. By the age of six, she'd completed a 142-page novel called The Book Worm.
She attended prestigious university Princeton, where she studied fiction, and her literary abilities were praised by her Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, who said MacKenzie was 'one of the best students [she'd] ever had'.
Her childhood shyness did not stop her from making the first move when it came to Jeff - she asked him out to lunch one day.
MacKenzie told Vogue in 1993 about how they got together, saying: 'My office was next door to his, and all day long, I listened to that fabulous laugh. How could you not fall in love with that laugh?'
Three months later, they got engaged, tying the knot three months after that.
During the very early years of their marriage, the couple left New York, renting a one-bedroom home in Seattle so Jeff could work on his dream - creating an online bookshop.
As one of Amazon's first employees (she was offered an accountancy role when the company started to become successful), she has spoken out about her contribution to the company's success.
'I was there when he wrote the business plan, and I worked with him and many others represented in the converted garage, the basement warehouse closet, the barbecue-scented offices, the Christmas-rush distribution centres, and the door-desk-filled conference rooms in the early years of Amazon's history,' she once said.
As Amazon became increasingly successful, Jeff and MacKenzie invested in a portfolio of buildings, snapping up properties in Washington, Beverley Hills, California, Texas and Manhattan, New York.
Despite their immense wealth, the couple were determined to maintain a normal family life with their four children - three sons and a daughter they adopted from China.
This staggering wealth meant that when the couple divorced, the division of assets was a topic of interest for many.
Reports at the time said Jeff 'got off lightly' when it came to the agreement he and Mackenzie came to in their split.
While they didn't explain their reasoning behind the division of assets, Mackenzie took just half of what she was entitled to, keeping a four percent stake in Amazon (then valued at worth $35.8billion) as opposed to eight percent.
Meanwhile Jeff kept 75 percent of their joint $144billion Amazon stake - a 12 per cent stake valued at that time at around $107.5billion.
He also took voting control of his ex-wife's remaining shares, and was given her interest in The Washington Post, which he bought for $250million in 2013, as well as Blue Origin, the space travel company he was investing in.
During their 25-year marriage Jeff, was known as a low-key private tech geek, the couple were said to live an 'abnormally normal' lifestyle despite their vast wealth.
Tellingly, the billionaire e-commerce giant was still driving a 1997 Honda in 2013 - despite making his first appearance on Forbes list of America's 400 wealthiest people in 1998 - because it was 'a perfectly good car'.
In 2019, the National Enquirer exposed Jeff's romance with Lauren Sanchez, and soon after, the billionaire divorced the mother of his four children.