Founder of the world’s largest online store Amazon and one of the first private space companies, Blue Origin. The richest person in the world according to Forbes. So, here is most interesting Facts About Jeff Bezos:
Early Years
- Jeff Bezos was born when his mother was only 17 years old and still in high school. His biological father owned a bicycle shop. In 1965, his parents divorced, and in 1968, his mother married Cuban immigrant Miguel “Mike” Bezos. Jeff took his stepfather’s last name and has no relationship with his biological father.
- At 16, Bezos worked at McDonald’s. According to the businessman, he wasn’t allowed to interact with customers and was instead tasked with cooking burgers.
Business
- He began his career at the telecommunications startup Fitel, although he had offers from companies like Intel.
- After a little more than two years, he moved to one of the largest banks in the U.S., Banker’s Trust, where he rose to the position of vice president (in 1998, the bank was acquired by Deutsche Bank).
- After two years at Banker’s Trust, he started working at the hedge fund D.E. Shaw and also became its vice president.
- On July 5, 1994, he founded his main business, Amazon, the largest online retailer in the world. It began as a bookstore but gradually transformed into a “store of everything,” as described in Bezos’s biography. The store was initially called Cadabra. Bezos holds the position of CEO in the company.
- In September 2000, he founded the space company Blue Origin. While its initial goal was space tourism, its ambitions have since expanded to developing its own spacecraft, rockets, and rocket engines. In May 2019, the company unveiled a prototype lunar lander module.
- In 2013, he acquired one of the major newspapers in the U.S., The Washington Post.
- In 2017, he became the richest businessman in the world for the first time in the Forbes Real-Time ranking, which is updated in real-time. In 2018, he topped the Forbes list of the world’s richest people for the first time.
- Bezos has his own investment and charitable foundations. The businessman was an early investor in Google, Twitter, and Airbnb.
Personal Life
- In 1992, while working at D.E. Shaw, he met MacKenzie Tuttle. A year later, they were married. They were married for 25 years and officially divorced in 2019. The reason for their separation was not disclosed.
- The couple had four children during their marriage.
- In the same year, 2019, Bezos became embroiled in a scandal. The tabloid National Enquirer revealed that Bezos had been hiding a long-term affair with former TV host Lauren Sanchez. In response, Bezos accused the magazine’s publisher, American Media, of extortion.