Page 30 - Forbes - USA (October 2019)

New Billionaire Cont.

A Celebrated Couple

Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos attend a 2009 awards dinner
at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Book Value
Leaders from the worlds
of business, academia,
ting 25% of his Amazon stock. That stake entertainment and
politics share what’s on
26 is currently worth $36.1 billion, enough
their bedside table.
to put her 15th on this year’s Forbes
400. “She should have gotten 50% of the
R
E company,” says Nick Hanauer, one of
N

N Amazon’s first investors. “MacKenzie was
U an equal partner to Jeff in the early days.”

R
T In keeping with character, MacKenzie
N
O MacKenzie Bezos was not fussy, which wouldn’t talk for this story. To shed some John Doerr
R was helpful, as there was no time for light on her, we spent weeks contacting
F Venture capitalist,
fussiness at Amazon headquarters in more than 100 friends and former class- Kleiner Perkins
early 1996. She shared her office with a mates and coworkers; even that yielded WHY WE SLEEP

junior employee in a space that doubled only a hazy picture, one of an intensely
as the company kitchen. For 12 hours a private but talented woman who has,
day, as workers squeezed by to use the quietly, excelled at every stage of her life.
microwave, she presided over the ac- MacKenzie grew up in San Francisco, a
counting. At night she headed to the middle child with two siblings. At 6, she
warehouse to pack orders. She “was a huge wrote a 142-page book called The Book
contributor,” says Mike Hanlon, Ama- Worm. Her parents, a homemaker and a
zon’s seventh employee. “She really is a financial planner, sent her to Hotchkiss,

talented person in a way that I think gets the Connecticut boarding school, where
lost when you’re the billionaire’s wife.” she graduated a year early. She studied
The mystery around MacKenzie, 49, at Cambridge, then Princeton, where she
seems carefully cultivated. She largely majored in English; Nobel Prize-winning
We all know how great it
slipped into anonymity after Amazon’s novelist Toni Morrison was her thesis advi- feels to have slept really
early years and has granted no interviews sor. “She was generally a very poised and well. So it’s no surprise that
Matthew Walker’s Why We

since January, when her split from husband a quiet and brilliant presence,” says Jeff
Sleep: Unlocking the Power of

Jeff became public. The couple finalized Nunokawa, one of her English professors. Sleep and Dreams (Scribner,

their divorce in July, with MacKenzie get- After graduating, she took a job at the 2017) argues that “a good
night’s shut-eye can make
hedge fund D.E. Shaw, where she began

us cleverer, more attractive,

dating Jeff Bezos, who left to found Ama- slimmer, happier, healthier

zon in 1994. From the outset, MacKenzie and ward off cancer.”
Forbes Finds
was heavily involved. “No one really had job But good sleep—and how to
BEST OF THE WEST titles . . . so she did just about everything,” get it—is elusive for many and
Ralph Lauren, No. says Tod Nelson, another early employee. poorly understood by medical
science. Walker, founding
100 on The Forbes MacKenzie pulled back around the time director of the Center for
400, has long Human Sleep Science at UC
celebrated the Amazon went public, in 1997, to focus on Berkeley, leads us on a fresh
rugged elegance fiction writing. She kept a low profile until and clear-eyed exploration of

of the Old West. how sleep affects our overall

The Ralph Lauren 2005, when HarperCollins published her well-being, our cognition,
American Western first novel, The Testing of Luther Albright. even our ability to stave off ELENA SEIBERT; DAVID MAHONEY; PATRICK MCMULLAN/GETTY IMAGES; RALPH LAUREN WATCHES

Collection recalls Morrison deemed it “a rarity.” MacKen- heart disease, obesity, de-
that era with pression and Alzheimer’s.
limited-production zie followed it in 2013 with Traps.
watches featuring The more recent chapters of her life Most important, he shows
hand-engraved are largely unknown. In 2018 she and Jeff us how to improve our sleep

cases in silver (from quality in simple, actionable

$24,900) and rose committed $2 billion to fight homeless- steps. This is a must-read for
gold (beginning at ness and support nonprofit preschools. In anyone in a high-stress role,

$40,500). There are like the entrepreneurs with
also two limited- May, as their divorce neared completion, whom I work. In the startup
edition pocket she signed the Giving Pledge, promis- world, where execution is
watches (starting at ing to donate at least half her wealth. everything, founders need

$45,700) for those unfettered access to this
who really want to True to form, she hasn’t said a word essential fuel called sleep.
rewind time. about where those billions will go. Walker provides the road
map to obtain it.
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