When MacKenzie Scott was a student at Princeton University, she studied creative writing with the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. In a 2013 Vogue interview, Toni said, "MacKenzie was one of the best students I’ve ever had in my creative-writing classes . . . really one of the best."
In those classes, it wasn't just about writing. Toni taught her students to pay close attention to people, to their voices, and to the stories that reveal their struggles and dreams. Those lessons stayed with MacKenzie for the rest of her life.
MacKenzie's journey was not easy. Before she went to Princeton, her father's investment company went bankrupt, and her family declared personal bankruptcy. In a personal essay on Medium called "No Dollar Signs This Time," MacKenzie said,
"It was the college roommate who found me crying, and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out sophomore year... It was the local dentist who offered me free dental work when he saw me securing a broken tooth with denture glue in college."
By her sophomore year, MacKenzie was already sharing her writing with Toni Morrison. Her mentorship shaped her voice as a writer. Their correspondence is now preserved in the Toni Morrison Papers at Princeton's Firestone Library in 2014.
After college in 1992, MacKenzie was waitressing in New York City and still trying to make time for writing. In one of the letters in the Princeton archives, MacKenzie wrote to Toni about being exhausted and worried about how to pay rent with the little money she earned.
The next year, she applied for a job at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw. In a letter, she told her mentor that she had been hired after Jeff Bezos read a transcript of Toni Morrison's phone recommendation. That moment changed her life.
At D. E. Shaw, MacKenzie worked in an office near Jeff. They married later that year and moved to Seattle, Washington in 1994. Jeff founded Amazon, and MacKenzie contributed to the early operations of the company. The company would eventually make both of them among the world's wealthiest people.
After their divorce in 2019, MacKenzie signed the Giving Pledge and promised to use her wealth to help people and communities in need. She has kept that promise and has already given away more than $19.25 billion as of November 2025, according to her nonprofit Yield Giving.
MacKenzie supported schools, nonprofits, food banks, housing programs, and health care and education initiatives that help families every day. She has helped organizations such as the Girl Scouts, United Way, and Habitat for Humanity. She has also given about $1.06 billion to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and has helped students, strengthened communities, and given hope to people who need it most.
MacKenzie eventually wrote two novels, The Testing of Luther Albright in 2005 and Traps in 2013.
Toni Morrison passed away on August 5, 2019, in New York City at 88 years old. She was one of America's most celebrated writers and the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Toni Morrison's belief in empathy and humanity still lives on through MacKenzie Scott's kindness and giving. Their story reminds all of us how one teacher's care can inspire a lifetime of compassion.
