Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the world’s wealthiest man, has been publicly agonizing over a vexing problem: what to do with all his money.

Last week, more than a year after asking his Twitter followers for philanthropic ideas, Mr. Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced an initial plan. They said they would donate $2 billion to a new foundation meant to address homelessness and improve preschool education. The gift is a tiny portion of the Bezoses’ total wealth — estimated by Forbes magazine to be $162 billion — but the foundation’s name, the Bezos Day 1 Fund, suggests there will be lots more to come.

The question of how Mr. Bezos should spend his money is a good one, but a better place to start might be: Why does he have so much money in the first place? What does his fortune tell us about the economic structure and impact of the tech industry, the engine behind his billions? And, most important, what responsibility comes with his wealth — and is it any business of ours what he does with it?

The answer: Of course it’s our business.

Mr. Bezos’ extreme wealth is not only a product of his own ingenuity. It is also a function of several grand forces shaping the global economy. One is the unequal impact of digital technology, which has reduced costs and brought conveniences to many, but whose direct economic benefits have accrued to a small number of superstar companies and their largest shareholders. There is also the effect of labor and economic policy, which in the United States has failed to keep up with, and often only aggravated, the problem of tech-driven concentrations of wealth.