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Fortune
Fortune
Sydney Lake

A $1,000 loan kept MacKenzie Scott in college—now the billionaire philanthropist is giving away her $37 billion fortune to repay it forward

MacKenzie Scott (Credit: Franziska Krug—Getty Images)

MacKenzie Scott has been one of the most generous philanthropists during the past few years, and an episode in college may help explain why.

After finalizing her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2019, Scott ended up with a load of shares she earned from building the e-commerce giant during its early days, when she helped with business plans and contracts. Upon their divorce, Scott received roughly a 4% stake in Amazon, or about 139 million shares at the time.

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