MacKenzie Scott Tuttle was born in San Francisco, California. Growing up, she loved to read and write stories, and at the age of 6, she wrote a 142-page book titled The Book Worm. After graduating high school, Scott attended Princeton University, studying English under Nobel prize Laureate Toni Morrison, later working as her research assistant. In 1992, at the age of 22, she worked at the hedge fund company D.E Shaw in NYC, where she met Jeff Bezos. The couple married in 1993, and the following year, they moved to Seattle, where her husband started the online marketing website Amazon.com with Scott by his side. She was one of Amazon’s first employees, working on its business plan, accounts, orders, and negotiating its first shipping contract. When the success took off, Scott became less involved in the business and focused on her children and literary career. In 2005, at 35, she published her first novel, The Testing of Luther Albright. Los Angeles Times named it the book of the year, and she received the American Book Award. In 2013, she published her second novel, Traps. Later that year, she founded the anti-bullying organization Bystander Revolution, where she serves as executive director. In 2019, at the age of 49, Scott and her husband separated. As part of the divorce deal, she received 25% of Amazon stock, worth $35.6 billion, and became the third richest woman in the United States. In that same year, she signed a Giving Pledge, in which she promised to donate at least half of her wealth over her lifetime. In 2020, Scott gave $5.8 billion to 500 non-profit organizations that promote causes close to her heart, including LGBTQ+ equality, racial equality, climate change, and Covid-19 relief. In 2021, she gave $2.7 billion to more than 280 organizations. In her action, Scott is changing the world of philanthropy, not only by the sum of money she is donating and the frequency she is giving it but also by her no-strings-attached philosophy. This system enables the organizations to use the funds according to their needs, with no restrictions, and by supporting hundreds of different causes and organizations, not a handful of steady ones. Read more...

Melinda French Gates was born in Dallas, Texas. She attended St. Monica Catholic School – the top student in her class. At 14, she was introduced to the Apple II, one of the first home computers, and became interested in computer games and programming languages. After high school, she studied at Ursuline Academy of Dallas, graduating valedictorian. Afterward, she attended Duke University, earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science and economics and then an MBA. At the age of 23, she began to work at Microsoft, first as a marketing manager and then as a general manager of information products, responsible for the development of multimedia and interactive products such as the movie guide Cinemania, the digital encyclopedia Encarta, and the travel booking websites Expedia. In 1987, the same year she started her new job, she met Microsoft CEO Bill Gates at a PC trade fair in NYC. The couple dated six years before they got married in 1994. Two years later, Gates left Microsoft to focus on her first newborn. In 2000, Gates and her husband combined three charitable organizations they established a few years earlier into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Their initial goal was to supply Microsoft products to libraries throughout the US to improve education, but over the years, she redefined the mission to address health issues and global poverty and divided the BMGF into three departments – global development, worldwide health, and community and education in the US. As co-chair of BMGF, Gates is in charge of improving the foundation’s strategies, results and setting new ways to execute its causes. Throughout the years, the BMGF had donated billions of dollars to improve various issues. Among these are – infectious disease control, family planning, agricultural development, and education. In addition to the foundation donations, the Gates donate millions of dollars from their personal wealth to other institutes, such as the Health Foundation, Duke’s Scholars Program, and the Seattle Children’s Hospital. For their philanthropic work, Gates and her husband received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. In 2015, Gates founded Pivotal Ventures, an independent investment and incubation company that focuses on the social progress of girls and women in the US. Throughout her career, Gates also served as a board member of various organizations, including Duke University’s Board of Trustees, the board of directors at Drugstore.com, and the Board of Directors of Graham Holdings. Read more...