Giving It All Away

I despise philanthropy with the heat of a thousand suns. Relying on the wealthy to fund our priorities is a disaster–we are completely at their whims, or the whims of the committees when the foundations exist. You out of fashion? You are gone. It’s terrible. But it feeds rich people’s ego so there you go. Thus, I love MacKenzie Scott also hating philanthropy and realizing it is terrible and that it just feeds rich people’s ego. So since she had the unfortunate personal history of being married to Jeff Bezos (maybe he was less of a monster back in the day?) and has more money than God due to the divorce, her just giving it all away with no strings attached is great. It’s not just doing that, it’s her open contempt for the world of philanthropy and all the grifters who get on the gravy train. The existential crisis this has caused in that world is hilarious. It’s true that due to the scams, she has had to professionalize this a bit, and maybe that’s a good thing, but the calls that “she owes the world more transparency” from the same people who try to make all of this as opaque as possible is just classic. Moreover, that she requires none of the paperwork or recording requirements or assessment or any of the bullshit at the heart of this that makes the money barely worth receiving is just great. If you have to be rich, this is how to do it.