Jeff Bezos

Jeffrey Preston Bezos (born January 12, 1964) is the president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board of Amazon.com. Bezos, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University, worked as a financial analyst for D.E. Shaw before founding Amazon.com in 1994. He was TIME magazine's Person of the Year in 1999.

Early life

Jeffrey P. Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His mother's ancestors were early settlers in Texas, and over the generations had acquired a 250,000 acre (100 km² or 62 miles²) ranch in Cotulla. Jeffrey's maternal grandfather was a regional director of the Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque. He retired early to the ranch, where Jeffrey spent most summers of his youth, working with his grandfather at the enormously varied tasks essential to the operation. At an early age, he displayed a striking mechanical aptitude. Even as a toddler, he asserted himself by dismantling his crib with a screwdriver.

Jeffrey was born when his mother, Jackie Bezos, was still in her teens, and her marriage to his father lasted little more than a year. She remarried when Jeffrey was five. Jeffrey's stepfather, Miguel Bezos, was born in Cuba. He escaped to the United States alone at age 15, and worked his way through the University of Albuquerque. When he married Jeffrey's mother, the family moved to Houston, Texas, and Miguel Bezos became an engineer for Exxon. Jeff attended River Oaks Elementary in Houston from the 4th to 6th grades.

Jeffrey showed intense and varied scientific interests at an early age. He rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room and converted his parents' garage into a laboratory for his science projects. The family moved to Miami, Florida, where Jeffrey attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School ^*. In high school, Jeffrey fell in love with computers and was valedictorian of his class. He entered Princeton University planning to study physics, but soon returned to his love of computers, and graduated with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering.

Amazon headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington.

Career

Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994, and became one of the most prominent dot-com billionaire entrepreneurs. In 2004, he started a human spaceflight start-up company called Blue Origin.

Estimated wealth

According to Forbes list of the World's Wealthiest People ^*:

1999 – $10.1 billion, ranked no. 19
2000 – $6.0 billion, ranked no. 55
2001 – $2.0 billion, ranked no. 234
2002 – $1.5 billion, ranked no. 293
2003 – $2.5 billion, ranked no. 147
2004 – $5.1 billion, ranked no. 82
2005 – $4.8 billion, ranked no. 41
2006 – $4.3 billion, ranked no. 147 (shared with others)

External links

Jeff Bezos | Jeff Bezos

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Early life

Career

Estimated wealth

External links