Jeff Bezos and his relationship to philanthropy, philanthropy, and human projects
"You need to give money as carefully as build a successful company." - Jeff Bezos
Bezos sponsored the search and recovery from the depth of 3 km of the Atlantic Ocean of F-1 engines from Apollo in 2015 and donated them to the Museum of Flights in Seattle.
Bezos, the richest man on the planet, has been criticized for his lack of participation in charity compared to his "billionaire colleagues", such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Let us see why Bezos is “not in a hurry” to give money to charity, and if it does, then how and for what reasons. ')
According to the Inside Philanthropy website, Bezos has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in charity. The Bezos Family Foundation’s foundation for its parents supports educational projects, and Bezos himself and his wife Mackenzie donate to health care and science. Amazon supports Mary's Place, a homeless shelter, and the Bezos family has invested more than $ 40 million in cancer research.
Recently, Bezos announced on Twitter that he chose two areas to which he is ready to devote his long-term charitable activities. What are the two areas? He did not say. He promised to give answers before the end of this summer. In addition, there will be a new recruitment of staff, so that someone could lead these events.
Transfer: “A year ago, I tweeted, asking you about ideas and thoughts about philanthropy. The answers were very inspirational, reasonable, helpful and valuable. I wanted to take this opportunity to let those of you who had any suggestions that I chose the two areas that interest me the most and that I announce them by the end of the summer. If I'm lucky, I can also announce recruitment. Until then ... Thank you! ”
Last year, on twitter, Bezos openly accepted ideas for long-term philanthropic issues that are worth showing interest in. The request received more than 49,000 comments and 10,000 reposts. Affordable housing, environmental protection and workers' rights are among the most popular offers.
Transfer: “I think about such a strategy of charity, which will be the opposite of what I devote most of my time - work for the long term. I like the long-term perspective - this is a huge lever. Blue Origin, Amazon, Washington Post - it's all a contribution to the development of society and civilization in different ways. But I decided that my charitable work should be to help people here and now - in the short term - at the intersection of urgent need and lasting impact.
Thank! Jeff. "
In the August 2017 tweet of 2017, Bezos said that the answers were “very useful and have already changed his thinking on how to approach this question.”
Based on these collective opinions, along with his past charitable contributions and his personal interests, let us try to suggest which areas Bezos considers worthy of attention.
Health care
Last year, Bezos donated $ 35 million to a cancer research center through the Bezos Family Foundation. Amazon also works with JPMorgan Chase and Warks Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in a health care business enterprise to “fix” the health care system in America. For starters, they make medical care more accessible to their employees.
Education
Until now, education, apparently, was the one that Bezos most passionately interested in in the field of charity. His family fund has scholarship programs for high school students since 2005. The non-profit organization also has several programs on early childhood education research and education financing in underdeveloped countries.
In January of this year, Bezos announced that he would donate $ 33 million to help thousands of “dreamers” who had illegally moved to the United States as children to go to college.
It will not be a big surprise for anyone if he decides to expand his presence in education, in a problem that he clearly cares about and has had a definite impact on.
Equal rights in the workplace
Amazon is the star of the first magnitude on many fronts: technology, retail and media. But his offices are not glamorous. Amazon is often criticized for the lack of diversity in labor and poor working conditions at some of the warehouses.
Therefore, Bezos decided to enter "philanthropically" and pump equality at the workplace.
Ecology
Despite owning a space company (Blue Origin), Bezos made it clear in messages on social networks, as well as in interviews, that his true love is Earth. In fact, the whole idea of ​​Blue Origin is to "go into space to save the Earth."
“Earth is the best planet in our solar system. We are going into space to save the Earth. ” - Bezos said on Earth Day this year (April 22) during a trip to the Arctic Circle in Norway.
“We sent robotic probes to every planet in this solar system. The Land of ANY DOUBT is the best. We are going into space to save the Earth. ” - he repeated in a separate tweet in February.
Bezos is one of 20 investors in the Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy Resources Fund, which is focused on combating climate change.
Some more thoughts Bezos
About disinterested love Life is full of different risks. Therefore, I believe that when you think about things that you will regret when you are 80, these are almost always the things that you did not do, your omissions. Very rarely, you will regret something that you did and didn’t work for you, something that didn’t work or something else happened. Most likely you will be sorry for your omissions and I’m not just talking about business. For example, if you loved a person and never told him about it, then after 50 years you will think why I didn’t tell her why I didn’t want her? These are life regrets, which are difficult to rejoice when, when you are alone with yourself, you remember the story of your life. So I think I won the lottery anyway. I won the lottery because so many people in my life loved me disinterestedly and I think Mackenzie (his wife) is one of those people.
Work / life balance We are constantly asked about the balance between work and personal life, but I believe that this is a destructive phrase, as it implies a strict interchange. But in fact, if I'm happy at home, then I come to the office with stunning energy and if I'm happy at work, I come home in the same full force. Therefore, it is actually a cycle, not a balance.
About their children They (his children) laugh at how I sing. They make fun of the fact that I can't remember the exact words. I always quote Churchill or someone else and do it wrong and they say to me: “It’s not even approximately what Churchill said.”
What dreamed of at the age of five First, of course, I was fascinated by the cosmos, it is my passion and I have studied it and thought about it since I was a five-year-old boy, but it is not because of this that I carry out my work. I do this because I am convinced that if we do not do this, we will eventually reach a standstill, which I consider extremely demoralizing. I do not want the great-great-grandchildren of my great-great-great-grandchildren to live in an era of stagnation. We all like a dynamic culture of growth and change and let's think about how to contribute to it.
What Bezos would not have done, even if he was 80 years old When asked if he would ever call or interfere with criticizing Amazon news (news), he said: “Never. Intervene below my dignity. I would be so ashamed. I would have blushed all over and could not do anything about it. I have never had to do anything like this and I don’t want to. For me it would be disgusting and disgusting. This is one of those things that I would regret when I am 80, I would regret intervening.
About philanthropy The problems of mental incapacity are very difficult to cure; serious drug addiction is difficult to cure. But there are a huge number of homeless, temporary homeless, women with children, whose father fled, and he was the only earning person in the family. Now they have neither family nor support. They were not always homeless. You can help this person. You, by the way, need to help them from six to nine months, you train them, give them work and get incredibly productive members of society.
Contribution to the future The only way I can unleash this financial resource is to convert my Amazon-earned money into space travel. Blue Origin is quite an expensive company to use these funds and at the moment I spend about a billion dollars a year from the Amazon budget to sponsor Blue Origin and I plan to do this for a long time.
A couple of speeches of Bezos at the TED conference:
Princeton Speech:
PS
“Jeff, one day you understand that harder to be kind than clever.” - grandfather
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