Melinda French Gates, MacKenzie Scott, and the New Era of Giving | Pivot

1. KSKara Swisher0:00

   ... Melinda French Gates. She announced her next chapter in philanthropy this week as she prepares to leave the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She plans to donate $1 billion globally over the next two years to help support women and families as well as reproductive rights in the US. A portion of the money will also be distributed in the form of, uh, $20 million grants to individuals like former New Zealand Prime Minister, uh, uh, Jacinda Ardern and Director Ava DuVernay, uh, to use at their discretion. I think Melinda was a, a, a funder of her recent film, for example, and, uh, there's a whole bunch of people, The 19th, she's given all this, these grants to really terrific groups and it's a r- it's a fascinating move between her and Mackenzie Scott. Uh, we have entered a very interesting era of philanthropy. Mackenzie Scott, as you know, a former, uh, was, used to be married to Jeff Bezos, donated $640 million over, to over 300 nonprofits a few months ago. She donated $2.2 billion last year. She is burning up the, getting rid of her money off her plate as if it's like lava. Um, y- this is really interesting, um, th- these two women, and then obviously, uh, um, Laurene Powell Jobs is making media investments, she has a, her own Emerson Collective that does both philanthropy and investments. Um, what do you, what do you, what do you think? What do you think about this?

2. SGScott Galloway1:19

   I think it's wonderful. Um, I think... I'm a sexist, I think there are certain behaviors that are more prone to people born as women and born as men, and one of the things I notice about, uh, philanthropy from women is they're not as big on the ribbon-cutting and believing that they should have input and influence into education 'cause they give, you know, $50 million to the Newark School District, not recognizing they don't know a fucking thing about public school education. I find that generally speaking when women give money away, it's in return o-... They ask for less in return and they're more promiscuous. They're like, "I've got a shit ton of money, it makes no sense to hoard wealth and I'm gonna start pushing it out and I'm gonna ask for almost nothing in return." And I think Mackenzie Scott is an outstanding American. I mean, look at... I- I- I'm here for Bill Gates'... uh, I'm sorry. I'm here for Jeff Bezos' midlife crisis. I actually enjoy watching it, I can relate to it, but while he's building super yachts for $300 million, you know, Mackenzie Scott is sending, sending $15 million to the JED Foundation to work on teen suicide. And by the way, she doesn't demand anything, she doesn't want to show up, she doesn't want her name on anything, she just wants to get, start helping people. And this feels, this feels like that. And then in another, what I think is just absolutely wonderful here and I think I'm going on Morning Joe on tomorrow to tal-

3. KSKara Swisher2:36

   Oh, cool. You like that show.

4. SGScott Galloway2:38

   I do. But more importantly, they like me.

5. KSKara Swisher2:40

   Mm-hmm.

6. SGScott Galloway2:41

   But, uh, I'm going on tomorrow and, with Richard Reeves, but i- it... I'm a glass half empty kinda guy, I talk a lot about what's wrong with America, but here's the reality, despite, you know, our House of Representatives insulting each other's looks, despite the zombie apocalypse of useful idiots on campuses, America is singular around some really wonderful things. And this is an American story, this is... uh, and I'm a big fan of Richard Reeves, he kind of got highlighted to me or brought to my attention some of the things going on with the struggles that young men face. The guy's at the Brookings Institute, he's an outstanding scholar, he takes a risk, starts his own business, it's a nonprofit but it's a true nonprofit, he doesn't answer to Microsoft, called the American Institute for Boys and Men. He takes a risk, he starts this thing just to produce research around the struggles that young men are facing, and then a woman named Melinda French Gates finds him and gives him $20 million. And you know something? This is a uniquely American story. It does happen in other parts of the world but it doesn't happen as often as it happens in America. So for all of the shitposting and of all of the catastrophizing, of all of the, the clickbait around everything that's wrong with our nation, this is one of the things that's right with it. We create tremendous economic value and then good people want to push it out to do good work. I, I just love this story. I'm really happy for Richard, and also Melinda French Gates has said, uh, bodily autonomy and women's rights are hugely important, she's passionate about it, it's wonderful, but at the same time she said, "If we're gonna have a, a, a vibrant community, who wants more economically and emotionally viable young men? Women."

7. KSKara Swisher4:16

   Yeah. That's right.

8. SGScott Galloway4:17

   And she's giving money (laughs) to an institute that's focused on boys.

9. KSKara Swisher4:19

   Yeah.

10. SGScott Galloway4:20

    I, I think she's, I think she's wonderful-

11. KSKara Swisher4:21

    She's excellent. Can-

12. SGScott Galloway4:22

    Go Melinda French Gates.

13. KSKara Swisher4:23

    L- l- l- let me make a, a comparison to something we just talked about. These sort of childli- childish men are doing their stupid Trump r- fundraiser with very little money that they're putting out to get a lot of influence and doing no good for humanity except for themselves, except for, like, self-aggrandizing themselves, both Chamath and David Sacks and also Elon Musk is doing this, but doing nothing to help all of society, they're just giving a piddling amount of money to whorish politicians in order to have influence. Meanwhile, Melinda Gates and, uh, and Mackenzie Bezos are using money, real money, real money, not little tiny multimillion dollar, $5,000 donations to have dinner with a, uh, with someone who has been found liable for rape. No, they're not using their money for that, they're giving away billions and billions of dollars to laudable people across the globe to make the world a better place. What a fucking comparison. These men are sad and dickless and these women have balls as big as all ever. That's all I'll say.

14. SGScott Galloway5:27

    Fuckin' dickless? Jesus Christ.

15. KSKara Swisher5:28

    Dickless. Sorry they're dickless.

16. SGScott Galloway5:30

    By the way, my, my ini-

17. KSKara Swisher5:30

    No, but they're doing this so they can have a party in Silicon Valley for Trump.

18. SGScott Galloway5:34

    N- n- neither... You're not-

19. KSKara Swisher5:35

    It drives me nuts that these people think they're important when this is where the real... If you have money like this, this is what you should do with it.

20. SGScott Galloway5:42

    Totally.

21. KSKara Swisher5:42

    Thank you.

22. SGScott Galloway5:42

    Well again, these, i- it's not... They're not presenting their money to issues, they're using a small amount of money to present themselves.

23. KSKara Swisher5:48

    That's correct.

24. SGScott Galloway5:50

    I- it's... It, this isn't... One is vanity, one is philanthropy.

25. KSKara Swisher5:53

    Mm-hmm.

26. SGScott Galloway5:53

    But, I don't know if you knew this but my girlfriend often compared me to Bill Gates when we would have sex-

27. KSKara Swisher5:58

    Oh, no.

28. SGScott Galloway5:58

    ... because I'm micro-soft.

29. KSKara Swisher6:00

    Oh. (laughs) God-

30. SGScott Galloway6:02

    That's good.

Episode duration: 12:06