Case Study Five
Succession With Expression
What do you do when your name already carries a weight of expectation?
Laurene Powell Jobs inherited the Steve Jobs estate.
MacKenzie Scott gained her wealth through divorce from Jeff Bezos.
Abigail Disney was born into a name synonymous with American childhood dreams.
Three versions of succession. None simply inherited a role — they each authored one.
In a world built on assumed structures, these Capstone owners turned privilege into architecture for systemic change. Not hoarding — redistributing. Not following — leading. Not preserving — reimagining.
Laurene: “I inherited my wealth from my husband, but I chose to build something different with it.”
MacKenzie: “I have a disproportionate amount of money to share.”
Abigail: “My name opens doors, but my purpose is to dismantle what’s behind some of them.”
Cornerstone:
Early drivers of different mindsets
Laurene Powell Jobs grew up in New Jersey. Her father died in a plane crash when she was three. Public school became her sanctuary:
“School was the thing that really worked for me.”
She studied economics and political science at Penn, then earned an MBA at Stanford. Education was her passion from the outset. Early in her career she co-founded College Track, a nonprofit helping underrepresented students enter and complete college through mentoring and financial support:
“We refuse to accept the idea that by age 14, a child’s path in life is already set.”
MacKenzie Scott grew up in San Francisco, already in love with reading and writing — penning a 142-page novel at age just six. At Princeton, she studied under Toni Morrison (widely regards as one of the most important voices in modern literature), who called her “one of the best students I’ve ever had.” Without family financial support, she graduated and pursued writing publishing her first novel in 2005. She was understanding the
“There are lots of resources each of us can pull from our safes to share with others — time, attention, knowledge, patience, creativity, talent, effort, humor, compassion.”
Abigail Disney, granddaughter of Roy O. Disney (Walt’s older brother and business partner), was born into privilege but resisted its orthodoxy early. Educated at Yale, Stanford, and Columbia, her formative years were shaped by activism rather than animation. Choosing New York over Silver Lake and Holmby Hills in LA, distancing herself from the Hollywood orbit, grounding herself in the social realities of the city. She recognised both the good wealth could do and its “personal, social, political, moral, and even spiritual corrosion”, shaping her lifelong commitment to justice and equality.
“I knew early on I didn’t want to be part of running the company — that world was not for me.”
Keystone:
Principles in practice
For all three, these were years of setting the scene for the Capstone work — creating the platforms, principles, and practices that would later define their impact.
In 2004, while raising her children (sent to public school by choice), Laurene Powell Jobs founded Emerson Collective, structured as a hybric LLC, named for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s belief in self-reliance and moral clarity. She described its early mission as “making sure talent and ambition are not dictated by the zip code you’re born into.” This was not philanthropy as afterthought.
MacKenzie Scott was Amazon’s first employee, meeting Jeff Bezos through work and helping to build the company’s early DNA. Long before her 2019 divorce settlement made headlines, she was clear-eyed about what she valued: “I have a disproportionate amount of money to share.” The resources came later — the resolve to deploy them was already there.
Abigail Disney, rejecting the corporate mythos of her surname from the outset, co-founded the Daphne Foundation in 1991 with her husband to address poverty in New York City. Years before taking public aim at her family’s company, she said: “I’ve seen all the good that wealth can do, but I have also stood witness to the way it can corrode on an epic scale.” Her keystone was not compliance but quiet, consistent activism.
By the time the Capstone came into view, the weight-bearing stones were already locked. The shift next was to rewrite the scripts.
Capstone:
Redefining Power Through Purpose
The move from keystone to capstone often comes with transition, loss, or awakening.
Laurene Powell Jobs – System Design for Social Change
“Growing wealth isn’t of interest to me… If I live long enough, it ends with me.”
Her Capstone mindset is about injecting innovation into intractable systems. Emerson Collective blends philanthropy, venture investment, policy, and media. Its reach spans healthcare, education equity, climate resilience, and independent journalism, including:
Majority stake in The Atlantic, investments in Axios and ProPublica to safeguard independent reporting and providing outlets for amplifying independent thinking and shaping public debate.
XQ: The Super School Project, $50 million to redesign American high schools and fund innovative models to better prepare students for the modern world
Waverley Street Foundation, $3.5 billion over a decade to drive solutions to help climate change and build climate resilience
Her model is not disruption for disruption’s sake, but patient system redesign — combining storytelling with measurable impact:
“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
MacKenzie Scott – Redistribution Without Ego
“I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”
Since 2019, Scott has nearly $20 billion to over 1,900 organisations — big, fast, unrestricted. No applications. No strings. She resists the theatre of philanthropy: no photo ops, no naming rights.
Her principles:
No red tape: “If you’re offering people money, don’t make them jump through hoops to get it.”
Focused: “Because our research is data-driven and rigorous, our giving process can be quietly disruptive.”
Trust: “We believe that teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use.
Her way of giving has been seen as disruptive within philanthropy, some calling it a wildcard due to it de-centering the power from the giver to the organisations receiving the transformational cheques . In a sector heavy with ceremony, Scott’s approach accelerates impact and creates a blueprint for catalytic giving. “Generosity is generative. Sharing makes more.”
Abigail Disney – Storytelling as Structural Critique
“If your name is on a company, you can’t just take the credit for the good parts — you have to take responsibility for the bad parts too.”
Alongside her award-winning projects as a producer / co-producer, in which she has backed over 100 documentaries on justice and equity, Abigail has focused her attention on the family business as her Capstone. She has challenged Disney corporate through her filmmaking for example The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, exposing wage inequality at their Parks.
“How can you have people dressing up as Snow White, Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty in the park during the day, and then going home to sleep in their cars at night?”
She also co-founded Level Forward to combine artistic vision with social impact and has joined movements like Patriotic Millionaires to campaign for living wages and tax reform.
Her activism confronts the myths that built her inheritance, aiming at structural inequality’s root causes. “My name opens doors, but my purpose is to dismantle what’s behind some of them.”
Closing: Power Redrawn
This is succession reimagined. Inherited momentum redirected toward profound purpose. Each built a Capstone fusing personal conviction with structural leverage — and carved their own way of doing it.
In Capstones terms, Laurene re-engineered systems, MacKenzie redistributed at speed, Abigail confronted the myths that sustained her inheritance. Different tactics, same principle: clarity of values, action on them, and amplification through platforms and storytelling.
You don’t need billions to take the lessons. You need to know your Cornerstones, live your Keystone years with intent, and shape a Capstone that changes the system you’re part of — even if that system is just your own sphere of influence.
This isn’t philanthropy as performance. It’s succession — channelled, challenged, and consciously reimagined. The question isn’t what would I do with their resources? It’s what will I do with mine?