Biography of Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston “Jeff” Bezos is the richest man on the planet, who became the founder of the largest online trading platform Amazon. The entrepreneur and billionaire owns his own aerospace company and dreams of soon sending the first space tourists into orbit. Bezos’s fortune in 2018 reached a record one hundred and fifty billion dollars, and even a high-profile divorce did not affect his gigantic financial incomes significantly.
Founder and chairman of the board of directors of the Internet company Amazon.com, founder and owner of the aerospace company Blue Origin and owner of The Washington Post publishing house. One of the richest people on the planet, in 2024 year took the first line with a fortune of $ 187 billion.
Childhood and adolescence
Jeff was born on January 12.1964. in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His maternal ancestors were settlers who lived in Texas, and over the generations acquired a ranch of about 25,000 acres (101 km2 or 39 miles2 ) near Cotulla. His mother, Jacqueline Guise, was barely seventeen years old at that time. Father, Ted Jorgensen, was two years older and performed in the circus, performing stunts on a motorcycle. He was a frivolous and windy young man, he loved to hang out with friends, he abused alcohol.
When Jeff was one and a half years old, Jacqueline’s patience snapped, and, taking her son, she returned to the parental home. After some time, the girl met the Cuban emigrant Miguel Bezos and married him. He replaced the boy’s father and treated him like his own son, and soon Jeff had a sister, Christina, and a brother, Mark.
A huge role in the upbringing of the future businessman was played by the maternal grandfather and grandmother. From four to sixteen years old, he spent every summer at their ranch, where he helped his grandfather with the housework, made all kinds of ingenious devices with him in the garage, and devoted his free time to playing checkers and reading science fiction.
From an early age, Jeff distinguished himself from his peers by innovative thinking and outstanding analytical skills. Already in elementary school, he became one of the best students, spending hours at the computer. At the time, his main passion was the virtual game Star Trek, which kicked off his fascination with space.
There was also the influence of my grandfather, who used to work at an agency for the research and development of military equipment and told his grandson a lot about rockets, rockets and flights into space.
When Jeff was 4 years old, his mother married Cuban immigrant Miguel Bezos, who adopted Jeff. After the wedding, the family moved to Houston, Texas, and Miguel worked as an engineer for Exxon. Jeff attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade. As a child, he spent the summers working on his grandfather’s ranch in south Texas.
When Jeff was thirteen, the family moved to Pensacola, Florida. There, Jacqueline made sure that her son was immediately allowed to study under a special program for gifted children, although according to the rules this was only possible after a year. She perfectly understood that her eldest son was an unusual and very gifted boy, and spared no time and effort in his training and development.
Two years later, the family moved again, this time to Miami, where the head of the family was offered a high-paying job. Jeff did not sit idle there either – during the summer holidays he worked part-time at McDonald’s, and in high school he organized the DREAM Institute with his friend Ursula – training courses for non-standard-minded children.
As of March 2015, Bezos was one of the largest landowners in Texas. Bezos’s mother’s grandfather was the regional director of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque.
Career
After graduating with honors from Miami Palmetto School, the young man entered Princeton University, where he mastered electronic engineering and computer programming. After graduating, in 1986 he got a job in the marketing department of a fiber optic cable company. Then he moved to Wall Street, where he first worked at Bankers Trust, and then took the position of vice president of the investment fund DE Shaw & Co.
By that time, Jeff began to seriously think about his own business project, which would make it possible to realize his ambitious plans. Watching the rapid development of the Internet, he realized that soon the lion’s share of sales will be carried out through the worldwide network. After analyzing the goods most demanded by buyers, he opted for books.
In 1995, Bezos founded the Internet company Amazon, whose office was at first located in an ordinary garage. The future billionaire put together tables from wooden doors with his own hands, and with the set aside ten thousand dollars he bought computer equipment and hired a small staff. He personally delivered the first orders to clients in his parent car, and after five years the value of the company had grown to $ 6 billion. In 1997, Amazon went public.
During this time, Jeff has significantly expanded the range of products offered by means of music discs, dishes, clothes, toys and a wide variety of electronic devices, and also attracted wealthy influential investors to his project. It is now one of the largest online marketplaces in the world, as well as a leading provider of cloud storage services. Bezos became the author of the idea for the Kindle e-books, as well as drone delivery. The warehouses of his company are fully robotized, which significantly increases the speed and quality of delivery of goods to the consumer.
In 2000, the businessman realized his childhood dream and organized the world’s first private aerospace company “Blue Origin”. Its goal is space tourism, for which the first test flights began in 2015. Bezos has acquired a ranch in Texas for the launch pad of his orbiters, and every year he invests in the development of the company for a billion dollars.
In 2013, Jeff became the owner of The Washington Post publishing house and created a film and TV series production company. Since childhood, he liked films about space aliens, and in 2016 he even starred in one of them, playing an alien in the adventure fantasy “Star Trek: Infinity”.
On April 26, 2015, after the Q1 reports by Amazon.com, an unprecedented story happened. Following the release of the report, the company’s share price jumped sharply, and by the end of trading rose 14%, which is $ 55.11 / share in dollar terms, leading to an increase in the company’s market capitalization and a share price of $ 445.1. Bezos, as the largest investor in the company, namely, he owns 83.9 million (14%) shares of Amazon.com, received considerable benefit – this made him $ 4.63 billion richer.Therefore, in April 2015, Bezos’s fortune was estimated at $ 37.36 billion
In the third quarter of 2024 Jeff Bezos will step down as Amazon CEO and will chair the company’s board of directors as executive chairman.
Investments
In 2013, Bezos bought the American publishing house The Washington Post for $ 250 million.
Bezos was one of the earliest shareholders in Google; he invested $ 250,000 in 1998.
He has also invested in Unity Biotechnology, a life-extension research firm that hopes to slow or stop the aging process.
Charity
In July 2012, Bezos and his wife personally donated $ 2 million to support a successful same-sex marriage referendum in Washington.
Personal life
Jeff met his future wife while working for DE Shaw. 24-year-old Mackenzie got a job there as an analyst, and Bezos was her immediate boss. The girl liked Bezos with her intelligence and quickness, and she liked the infectious laugh of the chief. Mackenzie was the first to muster the courage to invite Jeff to dinner. Three months later, the young people got engaged, and six months later they played a modest wedding.
The wife became for Bezos not only the beloved woman and mother of his three sons (the Chinese daughter in the family is adopted), but also a loyal friend and ally. Thanks to Mackenzie, an aspiring writer at the time, Jeff decided to trade in books, he is also immensely grateful to her for the support of his cosmic ideas, which even seemed to his parents to be complete insanity.
Net Worth
One of the richest people on the planet, as of August 10, 2017, his fortune was estimated at $ 83.6 billion.When markets opened on July 27, 2017, Bezos briefly became the richest man in the world, surpassing Bill Gates with a net worth of just over $ 90 It lost the title later that day as Amazon stock plunged, returning it to second place with a net worth of just under $ 90 billion.
In 2018 he became the richest man according to the version Forbes, taking the first line with a fortune of $ 135.6 billion.
As of September 2024, his fortune was $ 200.2 billion.
In January 2024, he lost the first position in the ranking of the richest people in the world to Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, but on January 12 he again took the leading position, Bezos’s fortune was estimated at $ 187 billion.
Jeff Bezos now
In the fall of 2017, the businessman became the richest man in the world, ahead of Bill Gates in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. By this time, his fortune had reached $ 100.3 billion, which was an absolute record in history.
By June 2018, Bezos’ capital had grown by another 50 billion, which once again put him at the top of the list of the richest and most influential people on the planet. True, in 2019, the entrepreneur lost a significant part of his income due to a high-profile divorce from his wife Mackenzie, with whom he had been officially married for 25 years.
The reason for the separation of the spouses was the affair of 55-year-old Bezos with 49-year-old TV presenter Lauren Sanchez. Rumors about their romantic relationship began to creep back in the fall of 2018, and in early 2019, Jeff and Mackenzie officially divorced. Uznayvse.ru notes: after the divorce, the ex-wife received $ 35 billion and took the fourth place in the list of the richest women in the world.