Oh, to be Jeff Bezos: the richest man in the world; the head of one of the most technological pioneering companies in the world and all with enough time on his hands to bring his plan to send tourists to space a reality.
But power and money was not enough to save his marriage of 25 years. He met Mackenzie, the mother of his four children at the New York hedge fund they worked at before they moved to Seattle to embark upon his bold business plan to sell books on the mysterious “world wide web” in the early 90s.
“If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all over again,” the couple wrote in a joint statement shared on Twitter Wednesday.
A high price to pay
It is never good news to hear of a couple parting ways. But there were high hopes for the couple who both appeared unassuming, publicity-shy and despite Mr Bezos’ estimated $137 billion worth – pretty down to earth. A quarter century seems a long time to call it quits.
Within hours of the announcement the divorce was widely speculated to be the largest in marital history. If a settlement is to be reached in Washington, where they live, Mackenzie will be entitled to half. That could include Bezos’ shares and could cause investor jitters – although Amazon’s share price rose ever so slightly upon the news breaking.
Silicon Valley breakups
It is not the first marriage failure among tech giant founders. Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife, Anne Wojcicki were once a hotshot couple in Silicon Valley. That is until Brin left her for Amanda Rosenberg, an engineer who had been helping develop the now-defunct Google Glass. Read more