全球首富離婚女主角：誰是麥肯琪·貝佐斯？
在她和杰夫·貝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)25年的婚姻中，麥肯琪·貝佐斯(MacKenzie Bezos)一直是亞馬遜的忠誠大使，這家公司讓她和丈夫成為世界上最富有的夫婦。
She was an integral part of its origin story, driving to Seattle in 1994 while Jeff Bezos sat in the passenger seat, working on the nascent company’s business plan. She was Amazon’s first accountant and was involved in its transformation from a small online bookseller to the e-commerce behemoth it is today, the second company in American history to be valued at over $1 trillion.
她是其創(chuàng)始故事不可或缺的一部分：1994年，她驅(qū)車到了西雅圖，為這個新生公司制定商業(yè)計劃，而杰夫·貝佐斯就坐在副駕駛座上。她是亞馬遜第一位會計，參與了它從一個小型在線書店到當(dāng)今電子商務(wù)巨頭的轉(zhuǎn)變過程。亞馬遜是美國歷史上第二家價值超過一萬億美元的公司。
MacKenzie Bezos, 48, is a novelist. But Amazon has defined her public image almost wholly. The announcement this week that she and her husband would be getting a divorce may soon change that. A statement signed “Jeff & MacKenzie,” which was first posted to Jeff Bezos’ Twitter account, read: “After a period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends.”
48歲的麥肯琪·貝佐斯是一位小說家。但她的公眾形象幾乎完全是由亞馬遜定義的。本周，她和丈夫?qū)⒁x婚的聲明可能很快就會改變這一狀況。杰夫·貝佐斯在推特賬戶上首次發(fā)布了一份署名為“杰夫和麥肯琪”的聲明，上面寫道：“在經(jīng)歷了一段愛的探索和嘗試分居后，我們決定離婚，繼續(xù)我們作為朋友的共同生活。”
The couple, who have four children, wrote that they see “wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures.”
這對夫婦育有四個子女，他們寫道，他們看到了“作為父母、朋友、企業(yè)和項目的合作伙伴以及追求風(fēng)險與冒險的個人的美好未來。”
Over the last few decades, as Amazon grew, MacKenzie Bezos appeared with her husband at some high-profile events, including Vanity Fair’s Oscar parties and the Golden Globes; in 2012, she was a host of the Met Gala. (Amazon also underwrote the event.) But for the most part, Bezos has guarded her privacy, preferring to focus on writing and her children. She could not be reached for comment on this article.
在過去幾十年里，隨著亞馬遜的發(fā)展，麥肯琪·貝佐斯和丈夫出現(xiàn)在了一些備受矚目的活動場合，包括《名利場》的奧斯卡派對和金球獎頒獎典禮;2012年，她曾擔(dān)任Met Gala的主持人。(亞馬遜也資助了該活動。)但在很大程度上，貝佐斯一直都保護著她的隱私，她更喜歡專注于寫作和她的孩子。記者無法聯(lián)系到她就這篇文章置評。
She has made infrequent forays into the public eye to promote her books and to defend her husband’s company. In 2013, she posted a scathing one-star review on Amazon of “The Everything Store,” a book about Amazon by Brad Stone, to say it was plagued by “numerous factual inaccuracies” and “full of techniques which stretch the boundaries of non-fiction.” (Stone is a veteran technology reporter. Michiko Kakutani, reviewing his book for The New York Times, said he told “this story of disruptive innovation with authority and verve, and lots of well-informed reporting.”)
她很少進入公眾視野來宣傳她的書或維護丈夫的公司。2013年，她在亞馬遜上發(fā)表了有關(guān)布拉德·斯通(Brad Stone)撰寫的關(guān)于亞馬遜的書《一網(wǎng)打盡》(The Everything Store)的一星尖銳評論，稱其充滿了“大量的事實錯誤”和“超出非虛構(gòu)范疇的技巧。”(斯通是一位資深科技記者。角谷美智子(Michiko Kakutani)在《紐約時報》撰文評論他的書，稱他“用權(quán)威和熱情講述了一個顛覆性創(chuàng)新故事，并且有大量內(nèi)幕報道。”)
Still, little is known about this private woman who may be awarded one of the largest divorce settlements to date.
但對于這位可能將得到史上最大離婚協(xié)議的私密女性，我們?nèi)灾跎佟?/p>
MacKenzie Tuttle, an aspiring novelist, met her husband at D.E. Shaw, a New York hedge fund where Jeff Bezos, a computer scientist by training, had become a senior vice president.
懷著寫作理想的麥肯琪·塔特爾(MacKenzie Tuttle)在紐約對沖基金D.E. Shaw結(jié)識了她的丈夫，計算機科學(xué)家出身的杰夫·貝佐斯當(dāng)時已經(jīng)是那里的高級副總裁。
She told Vogue that she took the position of administrative assistant to pay the bills while she worked on her novels, but she soon found herself enamored with the laugh of the man who worked in the next office over. As MacKenzie Bezos put it in a 2013 interview with Charlie Rose: “It was love at first listen.”
她告訴《時尚》(Vogue)雜志，她當(dāng)時任行政助理一職，以便在寫小說的同時維持生計，但很快，她發(fā)現(xiàn)自己被在隔壁辦公室工作的那個男人的笑聲迷住了。如麥肯琪·貝佐斯2013年在接受查理·羅斯(Charlie Rose)采訪時說，“那真是一聽鐘情。”
Within three months of dating, the two were engaged; they married shortly thereafter at a resort in West Palm Beach, Florida. Jeff Bezos was 30; MacKenzie Bezos was 23.
約會三個月后，兩人就訂婚了;不久后，他們在佛羅里達(dá)州西棕櫚灘的一個度假村結(jié)婚。當(dāng)年杰夫·貝佐斯30歲，麥肯琪·貝佐斯23歲。
She often described herself as a bookish introvert, especially compared with Jeff Bezos, a swaggering, infinitely expansive businessman whose chief romantic desire, he told Wired in 1999, six years after his wedding, had been to meet someone “resourceful.” (That type of attraction seems to be mutual. In 2017, at a Summit panel, Bezos said that one of his wife’s sayings is: “I would much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid.”)
她經(jīng)常形容自己是個內(nèi)向的書呆子，尤其是與杰夫·貝佐斯相比。杰夫·貝佐斯是個神氣十足、有無限擴張欲的商人，他在1999年結(jié)婚六年后告訴《連線》(Wired)雜志，他當(dāng)年的愿望是遇見一個“足智多謀”的伴侶。(這種吸引似乎是相互的。2017年，貝佐斯在一次峰會座談上表示，他妻子說過的一句話是：“我寧愿要一個有九根手指的孩子，也不愿有一個不善應(yīng)變的孩子。”)。
MacKenzie Bezos’ literary ambitions began early. According to interviews and her author biography on Amazon (where she coyly notes that she “lives in Seattle with her husband and four children”), she started writing seriously at age 6, when she finished a 142-page chapter book titled “The Book Worm.” It was later destroyed in a flood; Bezos has said that she now meticulously backs up her work.
麥肯琪·貝佐斯的文學(xué)抱負(fù)很早就開始了。根據(jù)相關(guān)采訪和她在亞馬遜上的作者傳記(她在其中含糊地稱她“跟丈夫和四個孩子生活在西雅圖”)，她從6歲開始嚴(yán)肅的寫作，那年她完成了一本142頁的章節(jié)書《書蟲》(The Book Worm)。該書后來在一場洪水中被毀;麥肯琪說她現(xiàn)在會一絲不茍地備份所有的作品。
After graduating from Princeton in 1992, six years after Jeff Bezos graduated from the same university, MacKenzie Bezos took the job that introduced her to the future e-commerce titan. The couple married in 1993 and moved to Seattle in 1994, the same year Amazon was incorporated.
1992年從普林斯頓大學(xué)畢業(yè)后——杰夫·貝佐斯六年前畢業(yè)于同一所大學(xué)，她接受了那份后來讓她結(jié)識了未來電商巨子的工作。兩人于1993年結(jié)婚，1994年搬到西雅圖，同年亞馬遜公司成立。
Quickly, Bezos’ identity became enfolded into her husband’s company, even as she sought to make her mark in a publishing industry that he worked tirelessly to upend.
很快，麥肯琪的個人身份就和丈夫的公司緊扣在了一起，盡管她正希望在出版業(yè)闖出自己的一片天地——那正是丈夫不遺余力想要顛覆的產(chǎn)業(yè)。
MacKenzie Bezos, who first lived with her husband in a rented home in an East Seattle suburb, was heavily involved in the business at the start: In addition to working as an accountant, she helped brainstorm names for the company and even shipped early orders through UPS, according to “The Everything Store.”
麥肯琪·貝佐斯起初和丈夫住在東西雅圖郊區(qū)一棟租來的房子里，她從一開始就大量參與了亞馬遜的業(yè)務(wù)：據(jù)《一網(wǎng)打盡》的描述，除了擔(dān)任會計，她還參與了公司名稱的商討，甚至通過UPS寄出了早期的訂單。
“She was clearly a voice in the room in those early years,” Stone said in an interview for this article.
“在最初那幾年里，她顯然是參與決策的人物，”斯通在接受本文采訪時表示。
In 1999, they moved into a $10 million mansion in Medina, Washington, and she became pregnant with their first child. As they rapidly accumulated wealth, the Bezos family took pains to preserve the trappings of normalcy.
1999年，他們搬進了華盛頓州麥迪納一棟價值1000萬美元的宅邸，她懷上了他們的第一個孩子。在迅速積累財富的同時，貝佐斯家族竭力保持普通百姓生活的樣子。
MacKenzie Bezos often drove the four children to school in a Honda, and would then drop Jeff Bezos at the office, Stone wrote.
斯通寫道，麥肯琪經(jīng)常駕駛一輛本田汽車送這四個孩子上學(xué)，然后把杰夫·貝索斯送到辦公室。
As the company flourished, MacKenzie Bezos stepped back and focused on her family and her literary ambitions.
隨著公司的蓬勃發(fā)展，麥肯琪·貝索斯后退了一步，專注于家庭和自己的文學(xué)志向。
“Business wasn’t her passion, and when Amazon took off she wasn’t as involved in the day-to-day business,” Stone said.
“商業(yè)不是她的激情所在，亞馬遜起步后，她就不那么參與日常業(yè)務(wù)了，”斯通說。
She spent a decade on her first novel, often getting up early to write, and signed with her mentor’s literary agent, Urban at ICM Partners, who also represents Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro.
她花了十年時間寫她的第一本小說，經(jīng)常是早起寫作，并和她導(dǎo)師的文學(xué)經(jīng)紀(jì)人簽約——ICM Partners公司旗下的Urban，該公司代理的其他作家還包括戈馬克·麥卡錫(Cormac McCarthy)、村上春樹和石黑一雄。
“The Testing of Luther Albright,” which was published by Harper in 2005 and was widely embraced by critics, tells the story of an engineer whose professional and home lives begin to unravel in the 1980s.
《路德·奧爾布賴特的考驗》(The Testing of Luther Albright)于2005年由哈珀出版，受到評論界的贊譽，小說講述了一位工程師的故事，他的職業(yè)和家庭生活在20世紀(jì)80年代開始走下坡路。
In a review in The New York Times, Kate Bolick called the novel “quietly absorbing.” The Los Angeles Times named it one of the best books of the year, and Publishers Weekly praised Bezos’ “subtle imagination and a startling talent for naturalism.”
在《紐約時報》的一篇書評中，凱特·波里克(Kate Bolick)說這篇小說“安靜迷人“?！堵迳即墪r報》將其評為年度最佳圖書之一，《出版人周刊》(Publishers Weekly)稱贊貝佐斯“精妙的想象力和驚人的自然主義天賦“。
But Bezos’ literary career may have been complicated to some extent by her high-profile husband, who has done more than perhaps any individual in recent history to transform and sometimes destabilize the book-selling business. Many independent booksellers, publishers and agents blame Amazon for building a monopoly that has put independent stores out of business and poses a dire threat to once thriving chains like Barnes & Noble.
但是貝佐斯的文學(xué)生涯在某種程度上可能因為大名鼎鼎的丈夫而變得復(fù)雜。杰夫·貝佐斯對圖書銷售行業(yè)的改變，在近年可能是無人能及的，有時他的作為會導(dǎo)致這個行業(yè)的動蕩。許多獨立書商、出版商和代理商指責(zé)亞馬遜建立了壟斷，導(dǎo)致獨立書店停業(yè)，并對巴諾書店(Barnes & Noble)這樣一度繁榮的連鎖書店構(gòu)成了可怕的威脅。
Even though Amazon splashily introduced its own publishing imprints, Bezos still chose traditional houses for her books: Harper and Knopf. (When asked by an interviewer why Bezos wasn’t publishing her books through Amazon’s fiction imprints, Jeff Bezos jokingly described his wife as “the fish that got away.”)
盡管亞馬遜大舉推出了自己的出版廠牌，貝佐斯還是選擇了傳統(tǒng)出版社哈珀(Harper)與克諾普夫(Knopf)來出版她的書。一位采訪者問貝佐斯為什么不通過亞馬遜的小說品牌來出版她的書，杰夫·貝佐斯開玩笑說，妻子是“漏網(wǎng)之魚“。
Sales of her books have been modest: The novels have sold a few thousand print copies, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks some 85 percent of print sales. Some independent booksellers refused to stock Bezos’ novels, according to a publishing executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Urban, Bezos’ literary agent, declined to comment for this article.
她的書銷量平平：能追蹤85%左右印刷圖書銷量的NPD BookScan的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，貝佐斯的小說的印刷版銷量只有幾千本。一位不愿透露姓名的出版業(yè)高管說，一些獨立書店拒絕進貝佐斯的小說。貝佐斯的文學(xué)經(jīng)紀(jì)公司都市(Urban)拒絕對本文置評。
The Bezoses were the richest couple in the world; their divorce exists at a level of wealth that is virtually unprecedented. There have been billion-dollar divorces, like that of Steve and Elaine Wynn who owned casinos together, and certainly, technology entrepreneurs have been in and out of divorce court — most notably Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle who has been wed and unwed four times.
貝佐斯夫婦是世界上最富有的夫妻;他們離婚時的財富水平幾乎是前所未有的。曾經(jīng)有過涉及數(shù)十億美元的離婚，比如史蒂夫和伊萊恩·韋恩(Steve and Elaine Wynn)共同擁有的賭場，當(dāng)然，科技界企業(yè)家也多次在離婚法庭上進出——最著名的是甲骨文公司(Oracle)的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人拉里·埃里森(Larry Ellison)，他曾四次結(jié)婚和離婚。
But there has never been a divorce with a couple worth an estimated $137 billion, as Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos are.
但是從未有過像杰夫和麥肯琪·貝佐斯這樣擁有價值約1370億美元財產(chǎn)的夫婦離婚。
Little is known about the couple’s financial arrangements. Divorces are governed by state law, and the Bezoses’ primary residence and business are in Washington state, a community property state where any income earned or wealth created during the marriage is to be divided equitably between spouses.
人們對這對夫婦的財務(wù)安排知之甚少。離婚受州法律管轄，貝佐斯夫婦的主要住所和生意都在華盛頓州，這是一個主張共有財產(chǎn)的州，夫妻雙方在婚姻期間獲得的任何收入或創(chuàng)造的財富都要平均分配。
But some lawyers think it is unlikely that Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos will adhere to that guideline in a predictable manner. If they were to split assets equally, Jeff Bezos could find the 16.1 percent of Amazon stock he owns halved.
但一些律師認(rèn)為，杰夫和麥肯琪·貝佐斯不太可能以可預(yù)見的方式遵守這一準(zhǔn)則。如果他們平均分配資產(chǎn)，杰夫·貝佐斯持有的16.1%的亞馬遜股票就會減半。
“I’d imagine they didn’t fight at all over how much wealth each other gets,” said William Zabel, a founding partner of the law firm Schulte Roth and Zabel, who has handled many high-profile divorce cases but not worked with the Bezoses. Probably, he said, “they fought about control.”
“我可以想象，他們根本不會因為雙方分配多少財富而爭斗，“肖特·羅斯與扎貝爾律師事務(wù)所(Schulte Roth and Zabel)的創(chuàng)始合伙人威廉·扎貝爾(William Zabel)說。他還說，很可能“他們會為控制權(quán)而戰(zhàn)。”
Zabel represented Wendi Murdoch and Jane Welch in their separations, and said he thought the Bezoses would almost certainly negotiate a way to split the value of the Amazon shares while allowing Jeff Bezos the leverage he might need. The length of time such an agreement remains in place would be part of the negotiations.
扎貝爾曾是鄧文迪和簡·韋爾奇(Jane Welch)的代理律師，他說，他認(rèn)為貝佐斯夫婦幾乎肯定會協(xié)商出一種方式，既分割亞馬遜股票的價值，同時又讓杰夫·貝佐斯保留他可能需要的影響力。這樣一項協(xié)議的時效也將是談判的一部分。
