Dear Jeff Bezos

January 28, 2025

Dear Jeff (as in Bezos),

You’ve been on my mind. Not because I saw you looking so happy in the front row of the inauguration, although I did think of Woody Allen’s comment, “I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.” Yes, you seemed so happy, but I got the feeling that you haven’t realized that the country club you think is finally letting you in—well, it no longer has any of the members you wish to be associated with. But I digress.

I’ve been thinking about you because of a speech you gave at Princeton University. My fabulous daughter, about whom I’m not allowed to write, went to Princeton. I think they have some of the most amazing graduation addresses in the land. You delivered your words from what felt like a pulpit, looking down on everyone, from inside one of the buildings. Was it a chapel? No matter. You seemed so happy then to be there, with the same "cat who ate the canary" look on your face I saw at Trump’s swearing-in.

But it was the story you told that day that I’m stuck on. A personal one. You spoke about being a smart, precocious kid who loved numbers, and how much you cherished the summers spent with your grandparents. Your grandfather, who I think you said was a smart, quiet man who never raised his voice. And a kind-hearted grandmother. I put the speech above, but I haven’t watched it again. I want to remember it the way I heard it those years ago, not see it with the man you have become getting in the way.

The way I remember it, one day you were in the car with them. Your grandmother was smoking. You, armed with fresh knowledge about the dangers of cigarettes, calculated how much her habit was shortening her life. X minutes per cigarette, Y cigarettes per day. When you’d finished the calculations, you proudly announced that your grandmother had shortened the number of years she would be on earth by nine years. Maybe it was seven. Don’t quote me. Facts matter.

You were so excited; you expected to be lauded for your brilliance. Your calculations. Your efforts.

But you were stunned. Your grandmother started to cry. Your grandfather said nothing. A few miles later, he pulled the car over, got out, opened the back door by your side of the car, and led you to the back of the car. He said quietly, “Jeff, it’s harder to be kind than clever.” He meant, you are very smart, and that will come easy to you. You’re going to have to work hard to be kind.

You shared that moment as a life lesson, reminding the Princeton graduates and everyone in the room that while their intelligence might be extraordinary, it’s kindness and humanity that require real effort. You called it a difference between gifts and choices, and said that for many people gifts are easy, while choices are always hard. And they are also what really matters. You seemed to believe it. You carried that wisdom from your grandfather to a new generation of achievers with such pride that day. Such conviction. I thought to myself that you were a man who would take his treasure and do great things with it.

So I have just one question, Jeff.

“What happened?”

With profound sadness,

Christine Merser

---

Addendum: A note from George Blecher, one of our readers and a renowned writer who adds his take on several other moral opposites:

“A note to Christine: thanks for sending me a draft of your piece about Bezos. The contrast he drew in his speech between gifts and choices made me think of several other moral opposites. Isn’t the contrast between talents or advantages you’re born with, and social acts that hurt or help other human beings, just another way of contrasting selfishness with altruism, business acumen with an innate sense of fairness, and even power vs. love? It’s really about whether you can reach beyond egotism and care about how what you do affects other people.

Bezos may have been sincere in his Princeton speech, but watching him sitting up there among the Privileged at the inauguration, it was pretty clear that he forgot his own good words, and chooses the first part of the equation every time.”