Before MacKenzie Scott published her first novel or helped shape Amazon in its early days as an online book seller, she found mentorship and guidance from one of America’s most acclaimed writers.

Scott credits author and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison not only with shaping her writing, but in helping her find her footing early in her career. Morrison, who was Scott’s creative writing professor at Princeton University, put Scott on a path to publish her first novel and get one of her first jobs out of school, where she met now ex-husband Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.

“This writer that I admired so much also turned out to be such a gifted and devoted teacher,” Scott said of Morrison in a 2017 Princeton University interview. “She has given me a real example of a life of passionate devotion to more than one calling.”

Scott has certainly had multiple callings. In addition to being a novelist and early contributor to Amazon, Scott, worth about $40 billion, is a prominent philanthropist. In 2025 alone, she donated $7.1 billion to nonprofits, and has given away more than $26 billion since 2019. She’s a signatory of the Giving Pledge, devoted to giving away the majority of her wealth during her lifetime.

More than $700 million of Scott’s donations this year have gone to historically Black colleges and universities, at a time when tech leaders like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have pulled back from funding DEI initiatives. With about $500 million given to HBCUs in 2020, Scott’s contributions to Black higher-ed institutions total more than $1.2 billion. These grants are unrestricted, meaning universities can do with the money as they see fit.

Some of Scott’s contributions have resulted in homages to her old mentor, who died in 2019: In February 2022, Howard University announced the creation of the Toni Morrison Endowed Chair in Arts and Humanities position using Scott’s $3 million donation to the college.