Jeff Bezos is an American businessman. He is the founder, executive chairman, former president and the CEO of Amazon Company. Amazon… It is the world’s largest e-commerce company and we all have purchased one thing or the other from it, know?
Jeff Bezos was first included in the Forbes World’s Billionaires List in 1999. He is currently, the second wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes August 2024. He was the wealthiest person from 2017 to 2021, according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes. He is considered as the first registered centi-billionaire. Amazing right? How about we dive deeper into the details of Mr. Jeffery?.
Family
Jeff Bezos is the son of Jacklyn and Ted Jorgensen. His mother, Jacklyn was a 17 year old girl at the time of Jeff’s birth and his father 19 years old. His father was a Danish American unicyclist. His mother, completed her high school, despite the challenges and also attended the night school, along with her baby.
Jorgensen used to struggle financially and he even drank. So, Jacklyn left him to live with her parents and filed for a divorce, when Jeff was only 17 months old. She then married a Cuban immigrant Miguel “Mike” Bezos. Shortly, after the marriage he adopted Jeff, who was 4 years old by that time and his surname was legally changed to Bezos from Jorgensen.
Bezos’s maternal grandfather was Lawrence Preston Gise a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission(AEC) in Albuquerque.
Education & Qualification
Jeff Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston, Texas from 4th to 6th grade. He displayed scientific interests and technological proficiency. He once rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger half-siblings out of his room. That’s cool, know?!
Bezos attended Miami Palmetto High School at Miami, Florida. He worked at McDonald’s as a short-order line cook during the breakfast shift. He attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of Florida. He was high school valedictorian, a National Merit Scholar, and a Silver Knight Award winner in 1982.
After his graduation, he attended Princeton University and majored in Physics. But, later on he switched to electrical engineering and computer science. He dreamed of becoming a theoretical physicist but gave up on his dreams, when he was defeated by his classmate, Yasantha Rajakarunanayake, in solving a mathematical problem. He graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Engineering(BSE).
Career
Bezos first worked at Fitel, a fintech telecommunications start-up. He was tasked with building a network for international trade. After that, he was promoted to head of development and director of customer service. He became a product manager at Bankers Trust and transitioned into the banking industry. Then, he joined D.E. Shaw & Co., which was a newly created hedge fund with a strong emphasis on mathematical modelling. By the time Bezos was 30, he became D.E. Shaw’s fourth senior vice-president.
In 1994. Bezos read that the web usage was growing at the rate of 2300% a year and eventually decided to establish an online bookstore. So, he and his wife, MacKenzie Scott left their jobs at D.E. Shaw and founded Amazon in a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington on 5 July 1994. They wrote its business plan on a cross-country drive from New York to Seattle. Seriously?! They planned about THE AMAZON in just a car drive?!! Wow.. That’s just surprising.!
Amazon was first named as Cadabra by Bezos but, he later renamed it as Amazon because it was the name of Amazon River, referring to his plan of company’s size as that of river. And also because it starts from A, as the websites listings were alphabetized at that time.
In 1998, Bezos diversified into the online sale of music and video, and by the end of the year he had expanded the company’s products to include a variety of other consumer goods. In 2002, Bezos led Amazon to launch Amazon Web Services, which compiled data from weather channels and website traffic. In November 2007, Bezos launched the Amazon Kindle.
Amazon was recognized as the world’s largest online shopping retailer in October 2013.
Personal Life
Bezos met MacKenzie Scott, a novelist who was a research associate at the firm working for D.E. Shaw in the year 1992. They married a year later and moved to Seattle, Washington in 1994. Bezos and his now ex-wife are the parents of four children, three sons and a daughter adopted from China.
In January 2019, Bezos and his wife Mackenzie released a joint statement which revealed that they would be getting divorced after 25 years together. Following, National Enquirer revealed that Bezos had an affair with media personality, Lauren Sanchez and it lasted for months.
Later, Bezos published an online essay on February 7, 2019, in which he accused American Media Inc. owner David Pecker of “extortion and blackmail” for threatening to publish intimate photos of Bezos and current girlfriend Lauren Sánchez. He stated that if he did not stop his investigation into how his text messages and other photos had been leaked to the National Enquirer. Media reports have accused Sánchez’s brother Michael of being the source for the photos obtained by National Enquirer. But, Bezos has speculated that it may have been the Saudi Arabian government.
The divorce was finalized on 4th April 2019, with Bezos keeping the 75% of the couple’s Amazon stock and her ex-wife MacKenzie getting 25%, which is $35.6 billion. Even just a 25% is a lot.. Bezos would be the world’s richest person if he wasn’t divorced. That’s the biggest divorce settlement of all times!
Bezos and Sanchez got engaged 22 May 2023. Although, there is no news about the wedding yet!
| Full Name | Jeffrey Preston Bezos |
| Age | 60 years |
| Date Of Birth | 12 January, 1964 |
| Birth Place | Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. |
| Wife | MacKenzie Scott (m:1933, div:2019) |
| Partner | Lauren Sanchez (engaged:2019) |
| Children | Four (3 boys 1 girl) |
| Salary per month | $798,333,333 |
| Salary per day | $26,611,111 |
| Salary per hour | $1,108,796 |
| Salary per minute | $18,480 |
| Salary per second | $308 |
| Net worth | $215.9 billion |
Interesting Facts
!! Bezos used to work at McDonald’s before starting Amazon.
!! He became a billionaire at the age of 33 years.
!! He founded his Space Company before Elon Musk.
!! He is a big fan of Star Trek.