The founder and CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos is a very rich man. As the fortunes of the firm and its market capitalisation have increased he has become the world’s second richest person. And now it looks like he’s looking seriously at supporting charitable concerns and good works and he wants to start “right now”.
As he notes in his tweet (see below), his business and strategic approach is usually more focused on the long term. he doesn’t expect instant success and profitability at Amazon. He’d rather build for the long-term. It’s an approach that has paid off sensationally well. But when it comes to philanthropy it looks like he wants to see and enjoy quicker results. He wants to support projects that have “urgent need and lasting impact”.
Request for ideas… pic.twitter.com/j6D68mhseL
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) June 15, 2017
Bezos remains a fascinating personality. And this approach to getting ideas on how to spend his wedge is rather typical of his unusual world view. As I read the statement I was struct by it’s warmth and originality. It’s not grand or boasting, it’s actually rather humble in that he admits he might be wrong in his approach.
But the big question is, how should he divest his wealth? And don’t tell us. Jeff wants you to tweet him with your ideas. What are you going to suggest?
6 Responses
I find it very hard to believe that Jeff really wants us to tweet him our ideas. I shouldn’t think he gives a flying toss what we think.
I can’t help but think that some individuals wantonly mistreat large sectors of society (eg small businesses) and then in a contradictory manner pretends to care so that everyone thinks they’re a nice person. But I may be wrong.
“World’s 8 richest people have same wealth as poorest 50% ” [Oxfam – Jan 2017, reported widely]. Maybe Bezos sees headlines like this and thinks “Oops, I had hoped no one had noticed!!”.
Rather than looking at the negative, why not try him out by tweeting him an idea and see what happens?
I was thinking of starting a small independent bookshop in the UK. I wonder if he will help?
If I had all that money like wot Jeff does I would hire two Private Investigators and get them to follow each other.