Jeff Bezos is getting very expensive divorce

[Dan Druff]

Jeff Bezos has been married for 25 years, which predates the founding of Amazon by less than a year.

Bezos was not super-rich prior to starting Amazon in 1994, but he was Princeton-educated, had worked various high-level IT/management jobs by then, and was already doing quite well.

For whatever reason, he chose not to get a prenup when he married novelist Mackenzie Tuttle in 1993. He was 29 at the time, and already had decent money to his name, as well as very positive career prospects.

He's the world's richest man, worth about $137 billion.

He and his wife just announced their intention to get a divorce, after a long separation. Since all of the Amazon money came AFTER they were married, it is possible she will get half, making it the largest divorce settlement ever, by a wide margin.

Reportedly Bezos had an affair. It doesn't appear to be a purely sexual affair, but rather a dating affair, where he has been secretly seeing Good Day LA Host Lauren Sanchez.

I always felt that divorce laws were very unfair to very wealthy people. If one person was responsible for earning all of the money, there needs to be a cap (even if it's set fairly high) regarding the amount of money the spouse can get. There is no reason that Bezos' wife should be entitled to almost $70 billion simply for being married to the guy who founded Amazon. I agree she shouldn't walk away anything short of wealthy, but there does need to be some common-sense recognition of who actually made the money.

This is especially true because the spouse can rarely claim in those situations that they gave up the opportunity to have made the same money by getting married. Clearly his wife would have earned only a tiny percentage of that amount of money if she never married him.

I have always admired Bezos for a few reasons.

First, he came from humble beginnings. His mom was a high school student. His dad was gone while he was a toddler, and his mom ended up marrying another man. Bezos was the name of the second man, who adopted him after his natural dad ran off. He worked at McDonald's as a teenager in high school. This was just a really smart guy who succeeded at every level of school, and then had an excellent business sense.

Furthermore, his site was one of the few which weathered the 2001 dot-com bust, and in fact grew during that time. He never wanted the website to be gimmicky, flashy, or beautiful. He wanted the interface to be simple, familiar, and easy. He wanted customer service to be friendly and overly generous. He actually empowered his overseas telephone reps to make decisions regarding customer credit and other issues, which is highly unusual. Most companies have overseas reps reading from a script and following draconian rules.

Pretty much everything he does manages to work, and he has shown that a large company can still be wildly successful while giving good customer service.

This affair probably wasn't about looks.

Laura Sanchez has the "botched plastic surgery" look:



Mackenzie Bezos is still pretty for her age:




I'm guessing Bezos just drifted apart from his wife (probably due to working so much), and somehow got to know Laura Sanchez and felt a connection with her.

I wonder if more guys will starr getting prenups after this gargantuan divorce settlement is announced.

[cleatus]

his worth increases by a billion every year.

he could spend a million every hour for a thousand hours or a little less than 4 hours every business day for a year and be even. so go to work and spend 4 million before lunch every fucking day.

how would anybody even find that much stuff. or enjoy any of it.

[Tellafriend]

how would anybody even find that much stuff. or enjoy any of it.

He can't, which is why he, like most self-made men of wealth, continue to throw themselves into their work.

[ErickAA]

I doubt he gives two shits about giving his ex wife $50B (or whatever it will be).
She isn’t going to spend it anyways, so it is going to go to the same place (their children) it would have anyways.

And he still has plenty of capital to do whatever he wants business wise.

[Sanlmar]

I doubt he gives two shits about giving his ex wife $50B (or whatever it will be).
She isn’t going to spend it anyways, so it is going to go to the same place (their children) it would have anyways.

And he still has plenty of capital to do whatever he wants business wise.

You’re right

The true HOF fortunes recently have been amassed without any regard to the total number. In each case it was about pursuing the process.

Jobs, Zuck, Bezos. Besides, you got the “Giving Pledge” now with Buffet.

These guys aren’t counting it every night. It’s pouring in so quick they fucking don’t worry about the number.

Bezos doesn’t give a fuck about the pre-nup. That’s for guys on fixed incomes.

[Dan Druff]

Sorry, but no matter how rich you are, I can't imagine not caring about your ex-wife walking off with $50+ billion.

verminaard did bring up a good point that it will probably mostly end up eventually in the hands of their 4 children, who were likely going to get it anyway.

But neither of them are likely dying any time soon, and she could get remarried and some other dude can start enjoying the fruits of his labor.

If they didn't have kids, this would be far worse for him, because the money really would be gone. At least he knows the kids will probably still get it.

Still, it has to sting. Unless he feels he deserves it because he was the one cheating.

[TheXFactor]

Jeff Bezos will give up more than half his wealth. $137 Billion.

His wife gets half his stock (50%) and the attorneys (5%) will make Billions too.