In a 2001 interview, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos reflected on the moral responsibility that comes with extraordinary wealth — calling himself a "lottery winner" and highlighting that philanthropy requires as much "time, energy, focus, and hard work" as building a fortune.
Bezos On The ‘Responsibility Of Success'
Bezos said that immense wealth brings an obligation to use it effectively, noting that giving away money can often be as challenging as earning it.
"If you are a lottery winner as I am, then one of the things you get a chance to do at some point in your life is to be a philanthropist," Bezos said at the time. "I think that if you win a lottery of this kind of size, one of the things you have an obligation to do is think about ways that wealth can be used in a highly leveraged way."
Bezos also cautioned that poor philanthropic choices can squander resources. "It's really easy to give away money in highly unleveraged ways where it's just a waste," he said. "I suspect that it takes as much time, energy, focus, and hard work to effectively give away money as it does to get it in the first place."
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From Garage Startup To Billion-Dollar Philanthropy
Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994 after leaving a lucrative Wall Street job, turned a small online bookstore into a $2.3 trillion e-commerce empire.
He currently holds a net worth of about $240 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, and owns roughly 8.6% of Amazon.
In recent years, Bezos has expanded his philanthropic footprint through initiatives like the $10 billion Earth Fund, aimed at tackling climate change, and the Courage and Civility Award, which grants $50 million to individuals supporting humanitarian causes.
However, in February, it was reported that $10 billion Earth Fund has ended its support for the Science Based Targets initiative.
He also pledged $2 billion in 2018 to support homeless families and education programs, and, alongside his wife Lauren Sánchez, has made several multimillion-dollar charitable donations.
Bezos' ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, has donated more than $19 billion to over 2,000 nonprofits since 2019 through her organization, Yield Giving.
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