Jeff Bezos

One of the famous American technology entrepreneurs, an investor is named as Jeff Bezos. He is the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer (CEO) of an American based electronic commerce and cloud computing company, Amazon. He founded Amazon in late 1994 in Seattle. Currently, Amazon is the world’s largest online sales company, as well as the world’s largest provider of cloud infrastructure services via its Amazon Web Services arm. Forbes named him the richest man in modern history in July 2018, as his net worth reached $150 billion. He is also one of the popular philanthropists. He was named Person of the year by Time in 1999. Time also named his one of the 100 most influential people in the world in their 2018 listing.

Gossips and Rumors

• World’s richest person, Jeff Bezos is a great philanthropist. He is one of the billionaires with a charitable heart. This Tuesday on 20 November, he donated nearly 100 million for 24 organizations under $2 billion “Day One Fund”. He granted $97.5 million on day one to help the homeless population. He established the philanthropic fund in September with a goal to help homeless families. All the 24 organizations, he has donated are spread over 16 states, including the District of Columbia.
• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Wife MacKenzie are getting divorced after 25 years of marriage

Best Known for

• He is the founder of the largest online sales company, Amazon.
• He is the richest man in modern history in 2018, by Forbes.

Early Life of Jeff Bezos

The full name of Jeff is Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen. He was born on 12 January 1964. His birthplace is Albuquerque New Mexico in the United States. He was born to Ted Jorgensen and Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen. His birth parents got separated, and his other married Cuban immigrant Miguel “Mike” Bezos in 1968. His surname was then changed to ‘Bezos’ from ‘Jorgensen’. He grew up in Houston, Texas. He attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston. His family moved to Miami, Florida, where he attended Miami Palmetto High School. In 1982, He was awarded high school valedictorian, a National Merit Scholar and a Silver Knight Award. He attended Princeton University, from where he graduated in electrical engineering and computer science in 1986. He was the president of the Princeton chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space at Princeton University. He started showing interest in science and technology from his childhood.

Career of Jeff Bezos

After graduating from Princeton in 1987, he worked at a financial telecommunications start-up, Fitel, although he was offered jobs at Intel, Bell Labs, and Andersen Consulting. At Fitel, his job was to build a network for international trade.

From 1988 to 1990, He worked as a product manager at Bankers Trust.

In 1990, he joined a newly founded hedge fund, D.E. Shaw & Co. Later, at the age of 30, he became the D.E. Shaw’s fourth senior vice-president.

Amazon

• In late 1993, Bezos thought of staring an online bookstore and left his job at D.E. Shaw.
• He wrote the business plan on a trip from New York to Seattle, where he founded Amazon in his garage on 5 July 1994, with $300,000 investment from his parents.
• His company name, Amazon was given after the Amazon River in South America, and it begins with the beginning of the alphabet “A”.
• Initially, the company was formed as an online bookstore, with plans to expand it to other products in the future.
• In 1998, he expanded the company into the online sale of music and video and variety of consumer goods.
• In 2002, he launched Amazon Web Services, with a purpose to compile data from weather channels and website traffic.
• In 2007, he launched the Amazon Kindle. It is a series of e-readers designed and marketed that enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle store.
• In 2013, Amazon Web Services signed a $00 million contract with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
• In October 2013, Amazon became the largest online shopping retailer in the world.
• Following the growth of Alibaba in China, Bezos has expressed his interest in expanding Amazon into India.

Blue Origin

• In 2000, Bezos founded a human spaceflight startup company named Blue Origin, with an interest in space travel and the development of human life in the solar system.
• He also indicated his interest in reducing the cost of space travel for humans and increasing the safety of it.
• Bezos is compared to Richard Branson and Elon Musk. All of three billionaires emphasizes spaceflight among their business interests.
• In 2006, Bezos purchased a large tract of land in West Texas for a launch and test facility.
• In November 2015, Blue Origin launched New Shepard space vehicle and reached its planned test altitude.
• Bezos has spoken freely about his hopes to colonize the solar system.
• Bezos clarified in May 2018 that preserving the natural resources of Earth by making the human species multi-planetary is the primary goal of Blue Origin.
• He announced that New Shepard would begin transporting humans into sub-orbital space by November 2018.
• In July 2018, Bezos announced that the commercial spaceflight tickets would cost $200,000 to $300,000 per person.

In August 2013, Bezos announced that he had purchased The Washington Post for $250 million.

Bezos makes his personal investments through Bezos Expeditions.

Bezos invested $250,000 in Google in 1998, which resulted in 3.3 million shares worth about $3.1 billion in 2017.

Bezos has invested in Unity Biotechnology, Grail, Juno Therapeutics, and ZocDoc.

In December 2017, New Shepard successfully flew dummy passengers into space and landed them safely.

Personal Life of Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos is married to Mckenzie Tuttle. They got married in 1993. She is a novelist, whom Bezos met while he was working at D.E. Shaw in Manhattan in New York. They were together in Seattle, where Bezos founded Amazon. The couple has four children. He has three sons and a daughter adopted from China.

Bezos faced helicopter crash in March 2003 in West Texas. He was one of the three passengers in a helicopter. He sustained minor injuries and was rushed to a hospital, from where he was discharged on the same day.

Net Worth of Jeff Bezos

As of November 2018, the net worth of CEO of Amazon is $137.6 billion. He is currently the richest person in the world. According to Forbes list, Bill Gates is the second richest person in the world, followed by Warren Buffett, Bernard Arnault, and Mark Zuckerburg in the third, fourth and fifth place.