x.com/lydialaurenson/status/2103531721631363425
1 correction found
Jeff Bezos met his first wife by asking around about "please introduce me to a woman who could get me out of a third world prison if necessary"
Bezos really did use the “third world prison” line as a dating criterion, but contemporary profiles say that strategy did not lead him to MacKenzie Scott. He met Scott at D.E. Shaw, where she worked next door and asked him to lunch.
Full reasoning
This claim mixes together two separate parts of the story.
Jeff Bezos did say he wanted “a woman who could get me out of a Third World prison” as shorthand for wanting someone resourceful. But the contemporaneous 1999 WIRED profile that reports that quote also says his "women flow" system of blind dates did not produce the desired result. In the same passage, WIRED says he instead "fell in love with a member of his own staff"—the future MacKenzie Bezos.
A later Vogue profile of MacKenzie Scott gives the meeting story more specifically: she says Bezos was the first person she interviewed with at D.E. Shaw, her office was next door to his, and she suggested lunch after hearing his laugh. That contradicts the idea that he met his first wife by asking around with that line.
So the quote itself is real, but the post is inaccurate about how he met his first wife: the available reporting says the “third world prison” dating request was part of his blind-date search, and that search was not what led to MacKenzie Scott.
2 sources
- The Inner Jeff Bezos | WIRED
"The number-one criterion was that I wanted a woman who could get me out of a Third World prison," he says... As it happened, women flow did not produce the desired result. Instead, he fell in love with a member of his own staff.
- From the Archives: MacKenzie Bezos: Writer, Mother of Four, and High-Profile Wife | Vogue
"Meeting her husband may have been a lottery—he was the first person she interviewed with at a New York hedge fund... My office was next door to his... She began her campaign to win him over by suggesting lunch."