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Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by gonzo on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @05:31PM (#23991809)
Mackenzie Scott has a name, and the title/headline should use it, instead of her “status” as Bezos’ “ex-wife”.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by pelender on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @05:50PM (#23991960)
I get your point, and I don't mean to be insulting to her as a person, but the reality is that her name recognition is essentially non-existent compared to Bezos. That doesn't make her less important or valuable as a person, but it's highly relevant to a newspaper headline writer who is trying to orient their reader in as few words as possible.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by animal_spirits on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @07:18PM (#23992622)
Honestly I saw a headline earlier today using Mackenzie Scott, and I had no idea who that was until I saw this post on hackernews. My only reaction was - "Who's Mackenzie Scott? Well, thats good whoever she is". Now I know who she is
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by bryanlarsen on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:47PM (#23992413)
Not many people can give away $1.7B. If I saw that headline with an unrecognized name I'd be more likely to click through than less.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by aogaili on Thursday July 30, 2020 @07:23AM (#23996856)
I have a feeling Bezos would not have gotten that far without her. I know nothing about her, but I suspect she is had a lot of influence on his success. She seems to have a strong character.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by threatofrain on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @05:59PM (#23992045)
> MacKenzie Scott Gives $1.7 Billion to Historically Black Colleges and Other Groups
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by fortran77 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:05PM (#23992096)
Too long. I tried it. And with just her name people wouldn't remember who she was. Don't assume motive.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by tropdrop on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @07:22PM (#23992650)
The way you can do both - i.e. giver her a name, since she has enough accomplishments in her own right to be named, but also indicate she is Bezos' ex-wife for those who do not know is like this:

Mackenzie Scott (Bezos' ex-wife) gives $1.7B to..

This ensures that in the future she might have enough name recognition to no longer be relegated to "Bezos' ex-wife," and one day we might make the () fall away.

To demonstrate this is true, we can turn to a lower celebrity, Mark Anthony. He tended to be referenced in publications like this:

Mark Anthony, Jennifer Lopez's husband...

However, at this point, he has enough name recognition that a lot of publications will no longer mention it in the title.

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by hiram112 on Thursday July 30, 2020 @12:25AM (#23994673)
> ...since she has enough accomplishments in her own right to be named...

I've never been interested in this woman, nor did I know anything about her previously. But just from her very brief Wikipedia, here are the highlights:

* Born into super wealthy family

* Sent to Pre-Ivy league boarding school in Connecticut

* Studies at elitist Ivy League university (Princeton) and graduates with pseudo-degree of 'English'.

* Meets Jeff Bezos while working the typical elitist hedge fund starter job in Manhattan. They get married!

... lots of years pass

* divorces Jeff Bezos, becomes one of world's richest persons

* donates a fraction of the money she won in divorce.

Wow, a true American by-the-bootstraps dream. Certainly, it is sexist to refer to her as "Jeff Bezos' wife" based on her many many individual accomplishments.

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by tropdrop on Thursday July 30, 2020 @02:53PM (#24001657)
For an excellent example of "a true American by-the-bootstraps dream," let's look at George W. Bush's Wikipedia:

George W. Bush attended two years at The Kinkaid School, a prep school in Piney Point Village, Texas in the Houston area.

Attended high school at Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, where he played baseball and was the head cheerleader during his senior year.

He attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history.

His application to the University of Texas School of Law was rejected.

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by threatofrain on Thursday July 30, 2020 @08:00PM (#24004210)
If that's all he did, he really wouldn't have been notable enough for Wikipedia. But then he did that thing at the end, so now all the details of his life are just supporting characters to the main story.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by lexs on Thursday July 30, 2020 @05:23AM (#23996131)
What is a pseudo-degree?
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by tropdrop on Thursday July 30, 2020 @02:57PM (#24001692)
This person considers any degree outside their personal preference of "important" degrees a pseudo-degree. I am guessing this personal preference probably closely aligns with whatever is currently considered "job-ready" degrees, and ignores the historical context in which some degrees used to be much less valued than presently.

For instance, a degree in math (the M in STEM) used to be considered a dead-end for a job, except to teach primary school, and was very female-dominated. This was true to such an extent that it was women who did most of the ballistics computing during WWII [1]. Many others invented new processes, like Grace Hopper, who designed the first compiler for a programming language. Sometime after the widespread media attention around the first personal computers - and who they were marketed for - this trend reversed, so that by the 1990s computing became seen as a "male" interest, and thus came to be dominated by men. Notably, this media interest was a Western phenomenon, which is why you'll encounter a lot of female Russian or Indian programmers working for American companies that are trying to boost their quotas of "diversity."

Another example of a reversal of trends of "real" degrees is aerospace engineering, a degree which used to be very lucrative (with the end goal working for any of the companies affiliated with the cold-war era space race). But when the United States decided to shut down their space program, a lot of these engineers lost jobs fast, and newly minted graduates could find no work.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing#1940s

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by threatofrain on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:21PM (#23992224)
The person above is talking about a newspaper headline writer. Are you assuming motives in communication while telling people not to?

I’m clarifying that the NYT article author didn’t write the current title. Why are you taking that as a value judgment?

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by fortran77 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:29PM (#23992291)
I posted this link. I was unable to come up with a title that included her name, the fact that she was Bezos' ex-wife, and who she donated a very large sum of money to, whereas the original long title did.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by threatofrain on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:47PM (#23992408)
> I really don't understand people like you who never read the articles and just comment on the title. Why are you here?

I quoted the original snippet to show the NYT author's original headline. Why are you still assuming motives instead of just talking to people?

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by gonzo on Thursday July 30, 2020 @02:11AM (#23995180)
“Bezos’ ex-wife” is one letter shorter than “MacKinzie Scott”.

Drop the “and”, use a comma. “, others.”

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by rexreed on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @05:56PM (#23992014)
The original article title has her name in it, spelled correctly. The current HN post title ironically misspells Bezos' name anyways. So double wham for this one.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by mc32 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:47PM (#23992407)
I don't see a problem with it -except the original title has her unmarried name, so I agree the title should bear that. That said, you reference a person by a well known marker, if they're not publicly well-recognized. The ex-CEO of Nasty Gal, Tim Cook's ex-husband, Kamala Harris's husband (etc). It's no big deal.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by fortran77 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @09:43PM (#23993448)
There's a character limit on HN titles.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by fermienrico on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:33PM (#23992323)
I can't believe the majority of the comments in this thread is about her name and the title.

Can we get past this pedantry please? She has done amazing work and that's not being discussed.

I would also be fine if the situation was flipped, "Mackenzie's husband donates $1.7B funds for charity" if we knew Mackenzie as the face of one of the largest companies and a household name.

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by kerng on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:13PM (#23992158)
Especially since the original newspaper article actually uses her name
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by sdinsn on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @08:21PM (#23993027)
Everyone has a name, but not every name is recognizable to the average person.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by supercanuck on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @08:32PM (#23993096)
And never will be unless her name is used.

She co-founded Amazon. She did good works, she deserves the credit

Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by ornornor on Thursday July 30, 2020 @05:32AM (#23996194)
Came here to say that :)
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by TechBro8615 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @05:35PM (#23991844)
> Macenzie Scott

You could start by spelling it correctly.

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Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by iaw on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @05:56PM (#23992013)
She was a critical founding member of one of the largest retailers on earth.
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Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by jt94mf90d on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:38PM (#23992351)
yes, imagine if he married a nutjob and he was stressed about life. No amazon.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by kerng on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @06:13PM (#23992169)
She helped build Amazon. Currently 19th richest person in the world.
Re:Mackenzie Scott Gives $1.7B to Historically Black College... by tanderson92 on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @05:53PM (#23991993)
She co-founded a business.