Jeff Bezos

About Jeff Bezos

Who is Jeff Bezos

Jeffrey Preston Bezos, better known as Jeff Bezos, is the founder and former chief executive officer of e-commerce giant Amazon. He is an entrepreneur, investor and media proprietor. His lucrative ventures have made him one of the richest people in the world, and Bezos has been named the "richest man in modern history" on the Forbes wealth index.

Early career of Jeff Bezos

After graduating from Princeton University, Jeff Bezos started a job at a fintech telecommunications start-up, Fitel. Within months, he was promoted as the director of customer service. He shifted to the banking industry and later joined D E Shaw & Co, a newly founded hedge fund. At the age of 30, he was appointed D E Shaw's senior vice-president.

Jeff Bezos as an internet entrepreneur

In 1993, Bezos quit D E Shaw to establish an online bookstore by taking financial help from his parents and other investors. Amazon, which took shape in his garage, was initially named Cadabra but renamed later. Within two months, Amazon’s sales reached $20,000 a week, growing faster than Jeff Bezos had envisioned. Amazon.com went public with an initial public offering (IPO) in 1997. By 1998, the online bookstore expanded to other products, notably CDs and videos in 1998, and clothes, electronics, toys and more through major retail partnerships later. While many dot.coms failed in the 90s, Amazon flourished.

In 2002, Bezos launched Amazon Web Services and secured a $600-million contract from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on behalf of the unit the next year. In 2007, he launched Amazon Kindle. For long, Bezos had been eyeing the food delivery market. In 2017, Amazon acquired the Whole Foods grocery chain for $13.7 billion in cash and Amazon Prime customers were offered in-store deals and grocery delivery in as little time as two hours, depending on the market. By 2018, his Amazon stock holdings had appreciated to slightly over $109 billion, which he began selling off to raise cash for other ventures. That year, Amazon reported its highest ever profit with quarterly earnings of $2 billion. By the end of 2018, Amazon was valued at more than $1 trillion. This made it the second company to ever hit that record, the first being Apple.

Bezos as an aerospace entrepreneur

Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000. This company develops technologies to lower the cost of space travel. For over a decade, the firm operated in the shadows, but Bezos in 2016 introduced its headquarters to reporters and revealed his vision of humans not only visiting the space but also colonising it. Two years later, he revealed the Blue Origin moon lander, which had been conducting test flights of its suborbital New Shepard rocket.

“We are going to build a road to space. And then amazing things will happen,” Bezos said. In 2019, Nasa collaborated with Blue Origin on 19 technology projects to reach the moon and Mars. The company is also working with Nasa to launch reusable rockets from a refurbished complex.

Bezos as a media proprietor

In 2013, Bezos entered the media business by purchasing American newspaper The Washington Post for $250 million in cash.

Jeff Bezos' net worth

Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest person alive and is also the first person in modern history to accumulate a fortune of over $100 billion. He has an estimated net worth of $156 billion. Bezos remains Amazon's largest stockholder and is one of the US' biggest landowners. Bezos also owns a $65 million Gulfstream G650ER private jet.

Jeff Bezos' personal life

Bezos, born on January 12, 1964, is from Albuquerque in New Mexico. He attended a science training programme at the University of Florida. In 1986, he graduated from Princeton University in Bachelors of Science in Engineering in electrical engineering and computer science.

In February 2019, Jeff Bezos and his wife filed for divorce after 25 years of marriage. The news had been announced by the couple on Twitter on January 9, 2019.

What seemed to be a very cordial exit from marriage soon spiralled into allegations of blackmail over nude photos and a private investigation into leaked texts. On February 9, Bezos alleged blackmail plot by the Enquirer and also claimed that the publication's reporting was politically motivated.

"Rather than capitulate to blackmail, I've decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten," Bezos said in the post. Jeff Bezos and his ex-wife MacKenzie Tuttle are the parents of four children — three sons, and a daughter adopted from China.

Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy

Bezos is often referred to as a cheapskate when it comes to giving away money. However, according to the Philanthropy 50 list 2019, he made the most charitable donations.

Bezos donates to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and has pledged $500,000 to a former Amazon employee's NGO called Worldreader. In January 2018, Bezos made a $33-million donation to TheDream, a college scholarship fund for undocumented immigrants brought to the US as minors. He has also donated to Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, which aims at promoting emissions-free energy. That year, he launched the Bezos Day One Fund, which focuses on "funding existing non-profits that help homeless families. In 2020, Jeff Bezos offered $690,000 to help Australia recover from the worst bushfires in its history.

Latest Updates on Jeff Bezos

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Updated On: 16 Jul 2024 | 4:25 PM IST

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Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin sets sight on India's space tourism potential

Industry sources say reusable launch vehicles are key to India's space tourism plan as they will make the entire business economical

Updated On: 07 Apr 2023 | 10:22 PM IST

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Elon Musk returns to the top, becomes richest person on the planet again

The rise in Musk's wealth can be attributed to the rally in Tesla stocks that has outpaced the rally in the Nasdaq 100 Index so far this year

Updated On: 28 Feb 2023 | 10:12 AM IST

NASA to launch Mars science mission on Bezos-run Blue Origin's rocket

The US space agency has announced a science mission to Mars aboard Jeff Bezos-run Blue Origin's New Glenn space launch vehicle

Updated On: 10 Feb 2023 | 11:51 AM IST

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Gautam Adani now no longer among world's top 10 richest billionaires

In the last 24 hours, Adani's net worth has fallen $8.21 billion, the highest among the top 100 billionaires in the list

Updated On: 31 Jan 2023 | 11:29 AM IST

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Adani slips to 4, Bezos enters top 3 in world's richest people list

The net worth of Gautam Adani, the chairman of Indian conglomerate Adani Group, now stands at $120 billion while Jeff Bezos net worth rose to $121 billion

Updated On: 24 Jan 2023 | 4:12 PM IST

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Jeff Bezos may sell Washington Post to buy American football team: Report

Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million

Updated On: 24 Jan 2023 | 10:15 AM IST

Owner Jeff Bezos makes a rare visit at Washington Post amid layoffs fears

I'm delighted to be here and see all these faces... Let's have a news meeting," he told the senior staff present in the meeting on Thursday

Updated On: 20 Jan 2023 | 2:56 PM IST

Andhra govt inviting Musk, Tim Cook, Bezos for Investors Summit in Vizag

In his message ahead of the event, the CM noted that the GIS was being hosted "with the goal of preparing for the future"

Updated On: 06 Jan 2023 | 9:57 AM IST

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Bezos and Gates back Synchron in drive for brain implant breakthrough

Synchron's Switch device aims to help paralyzed people, such as those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), communicate by controlling computer cursors with their minds

Updated On: 15 Dec 2022 | 7:28 PM IST

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Keep cash on hand, don't buy TV, fridge this holiday season: Jeff Bezos

He said consumers should postpone buying big basket items and businesses should also go slow on acquisitions until the situation improves

Updated On: 20 Nov 2022 | 2:10 PM IST

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says he will give away most of his fortune

The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way, Bezos said during the interview

Updated On: 14 Nov 2022 | 9:07 PM IST

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Top headlines: Adani to build plants in SL, active Indian firms near 1.5 mn

Business Standard brings you the top headlines this hour

Updated On: 11 Nov 2022 | 8:48 AM IST

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Amazon becomes world's first listed firm to lose $1 trillion in market cap

Amazon and Microsoft Corp. were neck-and-neck in the race to breach the unwelcome milestone, with the Windows software maker close behind after having lost $889 billion from a November 2021 peak

Updated On: 10 Nov 2022 | 11:49 PM IST

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Jeff Bezos sued by former housekeeper over racial bias, long hours

Mercedes Wedaa, who joined the billionaire Amazon.com Inc. founder's staff in September 2019, sometimes worked 10 to 14 hours a day and supervised a team of five to six housekeepers

Updated On: 03 Nov 2022 | 11:02 AM IST

Bezos family donates USD 710 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre

Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre announced a USD 710 million gift from the Bezos family, one of the largest to go to any single cancer research organisation in recent years

Updated On: 13 Oct 2022 | 10:52 AM IST

Jeff Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott files for divorce from science teacher

Amazon owner Jeff Bezos' former wife MacKenzie Scott has filed for divorce from her second husband, Dan Jewett, two years after they got married

Updated On: 29 Sep 2022 | 10:12 AM IST

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Gautam Adani overtakes Jeff Bezos to become world's second richest

Gautam Adani's wealth surged to make him the second richest man in the world, led by a sharp rally in the Adani Group stocks.

Updated On: 16 Sep 2022 | 12:24 PM IST

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Jeff Bezos loses $10 billion overnight; Elon Musk takes a $8-billion hit

The S&P 500 fell 4.4 per cent, the most since June 2020, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 tumbled 5.5 per cent

Updated On: 14 Sep 2022 | 11:31 PM IST

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Bezos' Blue Origin rocket suffers failure seconds into uncrewed launch

No people were on board for Monday's flight, which was carrying a host of payloads, though a similar version of same vehicle is used to regularly take paying customers to the edge of space and back

Updated On: 12 Sep 2022 | 10:54 PM IST