Jeff Bezos, a man with a plan, and Lauren Sánchez, his “alive girl” of several years, are getting married. On Wednesday, they celebrated with an engagement party off the coast of beautiful Positano on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, the land of hills and Aperol spritzes. It’s a fine place to drop the anchor of one’s $500 million yacht after bopping around the Mediterranean for months. You can say a lot of things about Jeff Bezos, but you can’t accuse him of neglecting his shiny new toy. He and Sanchez have been using that yacht.
The engagement celebration on the top deck was “intimate” according to Page Six. Just Bill Gates, his girlfriend, Paula Hurd, Wendi Murdoch, a handful of other notable names, and presumably 30 to 40 staff, or however many Bezos employs to keep the lights on and the boat floating. A small gathering on the new whip checks out for the couple, who reportedly began dating before Bezos’s marriage to his first wife, the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, was over. But I’d really love to know one thing: What does one man whose name is synonymous with a magnificent fortune give another on the occasion of his engagement? Bezos already has a yacht. He already has a small boat, the purpose of which is to carry people from land to the big boat. He has a newspaper and a whole company that builds and launches rockets! It launches rockets into space!
I think we can assume that Bezos and Sánchez already have glassware that says “Mrs.” and “Mr.” They already have an ice bucket with their initials on it. They can’t eat anymore of those damn delicious Harry & David pears. So maybe Gates got a little creative. Maybe he gave Bezos his tabloid-photographed image. The paparazzi got close-up shots of Gates and his date, and yet, we have no idea what Bezos and Sanchez wore to their own party. Perhaps Gates sacrificed his own exposure for that of his peer. It would certainly be thoughtful.