Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos
Born	Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen 12 1, 1964
Birthplace	Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Businessman, investor, commercial astronaut
Known for	Founding Amazon
Education	Princeton University (BSE, 1986)
Children	4
Awards	Time Person of the Year (1999)

Jeffrey Preston Bezos (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell; né Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American businessman and investor who founded Amazon, which has grown from an online bookstore into the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and raised in Houston and Miami, Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. After working on Wall Street for several years, he left a senior vice-presidency at the investment firm D.E. Shaw in 1994 to start Amazon in a garage in Bellevue, Washington. The company's explosive growth over the subsequent decades transformed the retail industry and reshaped consumer expectations around convenience, speed, and selection. Bezos served as Amazon's chief executive officer from its founding until July 2021, when he transitioned to the role of executive chairman. Beyond Amazon, Bezos founded the aerospace company Blue Origin in 2000, purchased The Washington Post in 2013, and manages a portfolio of investments through his venture capital firm Bezos Expeditions, which includes an early stake in Google. He became the first centibillionaire on the Forbes Real Time Billionaires Index and was described as the "richest man in modern history" when his net worth reached $150 billion in July 2018. In February 2026, Amazon surpassed Walmart to become America's largest company by annual revenue.

Early Life

Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen was born on January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His mother, Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen, was seventeen years old at the time of his birth. His biological father, Ted Jorgensen, was a bike shop owner. His parents' marriage was brief, and when Bezos was four years old, his mother remarried Miguel "Mike" Bezos, a Cuban immigrant who had come to the United States alone as a teenager through Operation Peter Pan. Mike Bezos adopted Jeffrey, who took the Bezos surname. Mike Bezos went on to earn a degree from the University of Albuquerque and became an engineer with Exxon, which prompted the family to move to Houston, Texas.

Bezos spent summers at his maternal grandfather's ranch in Cotulla, Texas. His grandfather, Lawrence Preston Gise, was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and had retired to the ranch. Bezos has spoken publicly about the formative influence of those summers, which he spent repairing windmills, vaccinating cattle, and engaging in other ranch work. He developed an early interest in science and technology; as a child in Houston, he rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room and converted the family's garage into a laboratory for science projects.

The family later relocated to Miami, Florida, where Bezos attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School. He was valedictorian of his graduating class and a National Merit Scholar. He also received a Silver Knight Award, a regional academic honor in South Florida. During high school, he started his first business, the Dream Institute, an educational summer camp for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. He has a half-brother, Mark Bezos, and a half-sister, Christina Bezos.

Education

Bezos enrolled at Princeton University, initially intending to study physics. He switched his major to electrical engineering and computer science after determining that he was not going to be among the top physicists in his class. He graduated summa cum laude in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. At Princeton, he was also elected to Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, and served as president of the campus chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS).

Career

Wall Street (1986–1994)

After graduating from Princeton, Bezos worked on Wall Street in several positions related to computer science and finance. He worked at Fitel, a financial telecommunications startup, where he was tasked with building a network for international trade. He subsequently moved to Bankers Trust, where he became a vice president by the age of twenty-six. In 1990, he joined D.E. Shaw & Co., a newly founded quantitative hedge fund, and became the firm's youngest senior vice president by 1994. At D.E. Shaw, Bezos was responsible for exploring new business opportunities in the burgeoning Internet sector. It was during this period that he became aware of the rapid growth of World Wide Web usage, which he later cited as growing at approximately 2,300 percent per year in 1994—a statistic that convinced him to pursue an Internet-based business venture.

Founding of Amazon

In mid-1994, Bezos left D.E. Shaw to start an online retail company. He drove from New York City to Seattle, writing the business plan for his new venture during the cross-country trip. He chose Seattle in part because of its proximity to a major book distribution center in Roseburg, Oregon, and because Washington state had a relatively small population, which minimized the sales tax obligations the company would face. The company, initially named "Cadabra" and then briefly considered to be called "Relentless," was incorporated as Amazon.com, Inc., taking its name from the Amazon River to suggest scale and the fact that "A" would place it near the top of alphabetical listings.

Amazon launched its website on July 16, 1995, initially selling only books. Bezos famously operated the company out of a converted garage in Bellevue, Washington. In its early days, the company faced skepticism from both traditional booksellers and investors. Bezos has recounted the difficulty of raising initial capital, approaching approximately sixty people and securing funding from about twenty-two of them, raising roughly $1 million in seed money from family and friends at a valuation that reflected the enormous risk of the venture. His parents, Mike and Jackie Bezos, invested a significant portion of their savings.

Amazon went public in May 1997 at a share price of $18. Despite initial losses—the company did not turn a profit until the fourth quarter of 2001—Bezos pursued a long-term growth strategy that prioritized market share, customer satisfaction, and reinvestment over short-term profitability. This approach was articulated in his 1997 letter to shareholders, in which he stated that "it's all about the long term," a phrase that became a guiding principle for the company.

Expansion of Amazon

Under Bezos's leadership, Amazon expanded far beyond books. Throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, the company added music, DVDs, electronics, clothing, toys, and numerous other product categories. The introduction of Amazon Marketplace allowed third-party sellers to list products alongside Amazon's own inventory, dramatically expanding the selection available to customers.

In 2005, Amazon launched Amazon Prime, a membership program offering free two-day shipping for an annual fee. The program proved transformative, building customer loyalty and increasing purchase frequency. Prime later expanded to include streaming video, streaming music, e-book lending, and other benefits. The launch of the Kindle e-reader in 2007 further expanded Amazon's reach into digital content. The device and its associated e-book ecosystem received the Economist Innovation Award for the "No Boundaries" category.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), launched in 2006, became one of the company's most significant businesses. AWS provides cloud computing infrastructure—including storage, computing power, and database services—to companies, governments, and individuals. It became the world's largest provider of cloud infrastructure services and a major source of Amazon's operating income. By the mid-2020s, AWS was a cornerstone of the modern Internet, hosting a substantial portion of web traffic globally.

In February 2026, Amazon surpassed Walmart to become the largest company in the United States by annual revenue, marking a milestone in the company's evolution from an online bookstore to a dominant force across retail, cloud computing, advertising, and logistics.

Transition from CEO

On July 5, 2021, Bezos stepped down as CEO and president of Amazon and transitioned to the role of executive chairman. Andy Jassy, who had led Amazon Web Services, succeeded him as CEO and president. Bezos stated that the transition would allow him to focus his attention on other ventures and interests, including Blue Origin, The Washington Post, the Bezos Earth Fund, and his other philanthropic commitments. He remained the company's largest individual shareholder and continued to play a role in its strategic direction as executive chairman.

Blue Origin

Bezos founded Blue Origin, an aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company, in 2000. The company, headquartered in Kent, Washington, was established with the goal of reducing the cost of space travel through reusable launch vehicle technology. Blue Origin operated with relative secrecy for several years before its activities became more widely known.

In November 2015, Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle successfully reached space and landed vertically back on Earth, a significant achievement in reusable rocket technology. On July 20, 2021, Bezos flew to space aboard the New Shepard on the NS-16 mission, becoming one of a small number of people to have traveled to space on a vehicle developed by a company they founded. The flight reached an altitude above the Kármán line—the internationally recognized boundary of space at 100 kilometers (62 miles)—and lasted approximately eleven minutes. Bezos was accompanied on the flight by his brother Mark Bezos, aviator Wally Funk, and student Oliver Daemen.

Blue Origin also developed the New Glenn orbital launch vehicle, designed for heavier payloads and commercial satellite launches, and was selected by NASA as a partner for the Artemis program's Human Landing System.

The Washington Post

In August 2013, Bezos purchased The Washington Post for $250 million in a personal acquisition, not through Amazon. The purchase was announced by the Post's then-owner, the Graham family, who had controlled the newspaper for eighty years. Bezos stated at the time that the paper's values would not change and that its journalistic mission would remain intact.

Under Bezos's ownership, the Post underwent a significant digital transformation, investing in technology, expanding its engineering team, and increasing its online readership. The paper adopted a technology-driven approach to journalism, developing proprietary publishing tools and growing its subscriber base. However, Bezos's ownership has also been the subject of scrutiny. In early 2026, The Washington Post faced potential staff cuts, and Bezos did not publicly respond to several letters from Post employees urging him to address the situation.

Bezos Expeditions and Other Investments

Bezos manages a portfolio of investments through Bezos Expeditions, his personal venture capital fund. Among its most notable investments was an early $250,000 stake in Google in 1998, which proved to be one of the most profitable individual venture investments in history.

In September 2021, Bezos co-founded Altos Labs, a biotechnology company focused on cellular rejuvenation programming, alongside Mail.ru founder Yuri Milner. The company aims to research biological reprogramming technology to extend human lifespan.

In 2013, Bezos funded an expedition that recovered two F-1 rocket engines from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The engines had been used during NASA's Apollo-era Saturn V launches. The recovered engines were subsequently provided to museums, including the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

As of February 2026, Bezos was reported to be among the individuals expressing interest in purchasing the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League.

Personal Life

Bezos married MacKenzie Scott (née Tuttle) in 1993. The couple had four children together—three sons and a daughter adopted from China. They divorced in 2019 in a settlement that transferred approximately 25 percent of Bezos's Amazon shares—then valued at roughly $36 billion—to Scott, making her one of the wealthiest women in the world. Scott has since become one of the most prolific philanthropists in the United States; in 2025, she donated a record $7.2 billion to charitable causes.

Bezos began a relationship with Lauren Sánchez, a media personality and helicopter pilot, which became public in January 2019. The couple married, and as of February 2026, they were named honorary chairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's annual Met Gala.

Bezos has spoken publicly about aspects of his personal philosophy. In conversations and public appearances, he has discussed his approach to dealing with stress and anxiety, stating that he finds stress diminishes once he takes the first step toward addressing a problem rather than avoiding it.

Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos contributed $10 million to the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) in Seattle, funding the Bezos Center for Innovation, which opened in 2013.

Recognition

In 1999, Time magazine named Bezos its Person of the Year at the age of 35, recognizing his role in popularizing online commerce. The selection made him one of the youngest individuals to receive the distinction at that time.

In 2008, U.S. News & World Report named Bezos one of America's Best Leaders, citing his role in building Amazon into a transformative company.

Bezos was the first centibillionaire on the Forbes Real Time Billionaires Index, and the second person ever to achieve a net worth of $100 billion, after Bill Gates first crossed that threshold in 1999. In July 2018, his net worth was reported at $150 billion, and he was described as the "richest man in modern history." In August 2020, his net worth exceeded $200 billion according to Forbes. As of December 2025, Forbes estimated his net worth at approximately $239.4 billion.

Bezos has been a participant in the annual Bilderberg Meeting, attending in 2011.

He has sold portions of his Amazon stock holdings at various points; in August 2015, he sold approximately $534 million worth of Amazon shares.

Legacy

Bezos's founding and leadership of Amazon fundamentally altered the landscape of retail commerce, cloud computing, digital media, and logistics. Amazon's customer-centric model—summarized in Bezos's frequent invocation of "Day 1" thinking, which emphasized the importance of maintaining a startup mentality—influenced management practices across industries. The company's innovations in supply chain management, warehouse automation, and last-mile delivery set new standards for the retail industry worldwide.

Amazon Web Services, conceived under Bezos's leadership, became the foundational infrastructure for much of the modern Internet, enabling startups and enterprises alike to scale without large upfront investments in physical computing infrastructure. AWS's success helped establish cloud computing as the dominant model for enterprise technology.

Bezos's approach to business strategy, particularly his emphasis on long-term investment over short-term profitability, became a widely studied model in business schools and corporate boardrooms. His annual shareholder letters, beginning with the 1997 letter that accompanied Amazon's IPO, are frequently cited in discussions of corporate strategy and leadership.

His purchase of The Washington Post represented a notable instance of a technology entrepreneur acquiring a major legacy media institution, raising questions about the evolving relationship between the technology sector and journalism. The Post's subsequent digital growth under his ownership became a case study in media transformation, though the paper also faced ongoing challenges related to the broader economic pressures on the news industry.

Through Blue Origin, Bezos contributed to the development of reusable rocket technology and the commercialization of spaceflight, joining a cohort of billionaire entrepreneurs—including Elon Musk and Richard Branson—who invested private capital in space exploration ventures during the early 21st century.