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The labor theory of value is wrong, yes. I think you're missing a step or two between that and the Washington State Divorce Court being the proper way to assess that value. The correct question is 'What rate of pay would Jeff Bezos and his wife have agreed to in return for her assistance?' Which is unfortunately impossible to answer given that no such negotiation took place.
I suppose you could argue that he married her with the understanding that, should they divorce, their assets would be divvied up according to that process? That's technically valid, but it'd be just as valid if that process were anything else, provided those terms wouldn't have prevented their marriage; also impossible to say, I suppose. Still, I think this is the best supported position.
On the other side, one can consider what he'd have had to have paid someone else to fulfill those same responsibilities -- certainly far, far less than he ended up paying her, even if he'd had to take out a loan to do so. It's certainly possible she did something for Amazon no one else could have done, but neither accounts nor packing orders meets that bar. He likely wouldn't have taken out a loan to pay someone else to do those things (at least not very early on), but that's not actually relevant so long as the court would have forced him to pay her for her labor regardless of the success it engendered -- her compensation was guaranteed, so there should be no risk premium. But that's not what the court would do, and they both knew that at the time, so maybe a risk premium is fair.
No thanks, Software As A Servuce is bad enough, I'm not entertaining Marriage As A Service.
It's not about compensation and premiums, it's about ownership.
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