Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet, who became the founder of the largest online retail platform, Amazon. However, the beginning of the billionaire’s biography did not look like the start of an incredible success story. How he became the wealthiest businessman in the world is what you’ll find out right now.
Jeff was born on January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His mother, Jacqueline Gise, was just 17 years old at the time. His father, Pat Jorgensen, was two years older, worked in the circus, was a frivolous and reckless young man, loved to joke around with friends, and abused alcohol. When Jeff was a year and a half old, Jacqueline’s patience ran out, and taking him with her, she returned to her parents’ house. After some time, the young woman met Cuban immigrant Miguel Bezos and married him. He became a father figure to the boy and treated him like his own son. Soon Jeff had a sister, Christina, and a brother, Mark.
The role of Jeff’s grandparents on his mother’s side in raising the future businessman was enormous. From the age of 4 to 16, he spent every summer on their ranch, where he helped his grandfather with the household, crafted various ingenious devices in the garage, and in his free time, played checkers and read science fiction. From an early age, Jeff stood out from his peers with his unconventional thinking and exceptional analytical skills. Once, as a child, he tried to disassemble his own crib with a screwdriver when he didn’t want to go to bed. As he got older, Jeff built an alarm system to keep his younger brother and sister out of his room.
In elementary school, he became one of the top students and spent hours on the computer. At that time, his main passion was the virtual game “Star Trek,” which sparked his interest in technology. His grandfather’s influence also played a role, as he had previously worked in a military research and development agency and told his grandson a lot about rockets, jet shells, and space orbit flights.
When Jeff turned 13, the family moved to Pensacola, Florida. There Jacqueline made sure that her son was immediately admitted to a special program for gifted children, even though, according to the rules, this would only be possible in a year. She understood perfectly that her eldest son was an unusual and very gifted boy and spared no time and effort on his education 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 didn’t sit idly by there either: during summer vacations, he worked at McDonald’s, and in high school, he and his friend Ursula organized the Dream Institute – a training course for creatively thinking children.
In the eleventh grade, as part of a math project, Bezos created a teacher rating system for his school. The ratings were based not on how much he liked a particular teacher but on how effectively they taught. Jeff gathered information from his classmates directly. By the way, Jeff, as the best student, was entrusted with the honor of delivering the traditional farewell speech at the graduation ceremony.
After graduating with honors from Miami Palmetto High School, the young man entered Princeton University, where he studied electrical engineering and computer programming. After graduating with honors in 1986, he got a job in the marketing department of a company selling optical fiber cables. He then moved to Wall Street, where he initially worked at Bankers Trust and later took a position as Vice President at the investment fund D. E. Shaw & Co. There, he met his future wife, 24-year-old MacKenzie. She joined as an analyst, and the businessman was her immediate superior. The girl charmed Bezos with her cleverness and resourcefulness, and he was taken by the infectious laughter of his boss.
MacKenzie gathered the courage to invite Jeff to lunch. Three months later, the young couple got engaged, and six months after that, they had a modest wedding. At this time, Jeff began seriously contemplating his own business project, which would allow him to realize his ambitious plans. Observing the rapid development of the internet, he realized that soon a lion’s share of sales would be conducted through the World Wide Web.
Thanks to MacKenzie, who was then an aspiring writer, Jeff decided to sell books. For the startup, the newlyweds left promising jobs with good salaries and a nice apartment. In 1994, the couple drove from New York to Seattle in five days. There, it was easy to find technical specialists, and neighboring Oregon had a huge book distribution market. They rented a small one-bedroom house. Jeff and MacKenzie spent a long time coming up with a name for the store. It could have been called “BookU,” “MakeTheRelentless,” or “Cadabra.” The latter name sounded like the word “abracadabra.” Once someone in Jeff’s presence mispronounced the company name as “Cadabra,” which in English translates to “trop.” It was necessary to protect the company’s reputation from such slips, so Bezos changed the name to “Amazon,” in honor of the river in South America.
He founded his online company in 1995. The office, which was initially located in a regular garage, Jeff personally assembled from wooden doors, purchased computer equipment, and hired a small staff. By the way, Jeff firmly believes in the “2 pizza rule”: it states that for a successful enterprise, a team size that can be fed with two pizzas is sufficient.
In general, Amazon was initially a very secretive company. No one really knew how many employees it had or where the office was located. By the way, MacKenzie, despite her writing education, became the startup’s first accountant. Like other employees, she did a lot of other work: processed orders, delivered packages to the post office. At first, Jeff personally delivered books to customers in his parents’ car. Bezos made sure that books were always delivered in pleasant packaging and that customers could receive notifications about new arrivals and read comments from those who had already read the book. He managed to create a complete community of consumers who shared tips on his site.
Over time, this model became standard. Now users of many stores base their purchases on product reviews. But in the mid-90s, this was an innovation. The store began offering discounts of 10 to 30 percent on most items, making purchases even more affordable. Initially, Bezos invested $300,000 in Amazon, which his parents gave him. Within a month, weekly revenue reached $10,000. By early September, the weekly orders had reached 20,000 books, which were shipped across all US states and even abroad. Sales grew explosively, and Bezos decided to expand the product range. He personally communicated with customers, asking what products they would buy along with books. Talkative customers mentioned they needed things like toilet paper or car window cleaning agents. And they weren’t bothered that the business was selling books. Thus, among the editions and bestsellers, diapers and toilet paper appeared.
A unique feature of the sales was that Jeff paid a percentage of each sale to advertisers and owners of other sites for placing links to Amazon. If a customer came to the online store from a specific site, its owner received an additional amount. This way, Amazon developed, and along with it, other site managers were eager to direct more customers to the store. No one did this, and it led to the fact that by the end of 1997, Amazon had over a million customers. In one year, the company’s revenue grew almost 10 times – from $15.7 million in 1996 to $148 million in 1997. In just 5 years, the company’s value had increased to $6 billion. During this time, Jeff significantly expanded the range of products offered to include music CDs, dishes, clothing, toys, and various electronic devices. He also attracted wealthy and influential investors to his project.
The entrepreneur constantly expanded the company’s activities, opened new departments, but most importantly – sold goods at much lower prices than the market. As a result, the company practically made no profit, and everyone thought it was about to close. But in reality, Bezos had a development strategy. He planned to make Amazon an integral part of the market, where every user would buy products on this site. Only after that did he begin to gradually raise product prices.
Despite the fact that after Amazon’s founding Bezos’s affairs went up rapidly, he didn’t start, like many, buying yachts and expensive cars and for a long time remained loyal to his 1987 Chevrolet Blazer, which he initially used for deliveries. Only in 1997, when the company’s shares appeared on the stock market, did he finally replace the old car with a new model Honda Accord. By the way, at that time the price of one share was $1.96, and now it is $2,400.
In 1999, Jeff and MacKenzie had their first child. Before his birth, the couple moved to a mansion worth $10 million in Medina, Washington. Jeff and MacKenzie have three sons and one adopted daughter from China. Five years after founding Amazon, Bezos demonstrated his investment acumen by investing $1 million in Google in the late 90s. At that time, it was a serious risk, which has fully paid off today. Also, when large sums accumulated in his accounts, he bought houses and land in seven cities in the US. But this is not extravagance, as it may seem at first glance: Bezos creates his properties for rent.
Today, Amazon is one of the largest online retail platforms in the world and also a leading provider of cloud storage services. Bezos is the author of the idea of creating Kindle e-books and drone delivery. The company’s warehouses are fully automated, significantly increasing the speed and quality of product delivery to the consumer.
The first Amazon logo depicted a river flowing from the top of a mountain. Now the logo has an arrow that connects the letters A and Z in the name. This symbolizes that you can find any product from A to Z on the online store. It is believed that any dissatisfied customer can send an email directly to Bezos, and it will immediately be forwarded to the company’s employees. Employees call an email from Bezos with a question mark in the subject “ticking bomb.” Within the very near future, managers must prepare an answer to the boss, which he will forward to the customer. The businessman believes that such measures are necessary for employees to always hear the voice of the customer. According to his company’s policy, every employee must spend two days every two years at the customer service counter in Amazon offices. This rule applies to absolutely all employees, and Bezos is also among them. So don’t be surprised if one day you are served by Amazon’s head himself.
In 2000, the businessman realized his childhood dream and organized the world’s first private aerospace company, Blue Origin. Its goal is space tourism, and already in 2015, the first test flights began. In 2013, Jeff became the owner of the Washington Post publishing house, for which he paid $250 million, and created a film and TV series production company. He liked movies about space aliens since childhood, and in 2016 he even appeared in one of them, playing an alien in the adventure fantasy “Star Trek: Beyond.”
In the fall of 2017, the businessman became the richest person in the world, surpassing Bill Gates. By that time, his fortune had reached $100 billion, and now it is estimated at $114 billion. In 2019, Jeff Bezos announced his divorce from MacKenzie, with whom he was married for 25 years. The reason was Jeff’s infidelity: he was having an affair with TV presenter Lauren Sanchez. Jeff and MacKenzie’s divorce became the most expensive in the world. She received a quarter of Amazon’s shares, valued at approximately $35.6 billion. She instantly became the third richest woman on the planet.
Jeff Bezos’s success story and Amazon’s development show every entrepreneur that persistence and self-belief can achieve a lot. However, the billionaire advises always having alternative options. When journalists asked him what he would be if Amazon failed, Bezos gave two answers: a happy programmer or a very good bartender. He has always said that he is not afraid to start from scratch. In the next issue about Amazon, you will find out how he spends his billions. Do you think Jeff Bezos will ever become a trillionaire? If you liked the video, like it and subscribe to the channel to not miss many interesting things.
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