Jeff Bezos is the founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) of Amazon. He is also the founder of space launching company, Blue Origin. Apart from Amazon, he also owns many enterprises like supermarket chain ‘Whole Foods’, streaming service ‘Twitch’ and many more. In 2013 he purchased a news company called ‘The Washington Post’. In 2018, Bezos became the wealthiest man in the world with a net worth of 112 billion dollars. As of 2022, Bezos is the second wealthiest man in the world with a net worth of 176 billion dollars.
Jeff Bezos’s Humble Beginnings
Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico on January 12, 1964. At the time of his birth, Jeff’s mother, Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen was a 17 year old still in high school. Soon she divorced Jeff’s father and remarried another man by the name, Mike Bezos. Thus, Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen became Jeffrey Preston Bezos at the age of four. Bezos was an academically smart student and was even the valedictorian in his high school.
At the age of 16, he worked in McDonald’s. He attended Princeton University to study physics but later changed his major to electrical engineering and computer science. After graduating from college, Bezos worked in a hedge fund in Wall Street.
The Beginning of Amazon
In 1993 after Jeff Bezos married MacKenzie Tuttle, he left his high profile job at Wall Street to start an online company. At the time the internet emerged and it was booming. Bezos understood the potential of the internet and founded Amazon in a garage in Seattle, Washington on July 5, 1994. Bezos chose the name Amazon because it was the largest river in the world and he dreamt of making Amazon, the largest online retailer in the world.
In the beginning, Amazon sold books online. They would take orders during the day and pack books at night. The orders would then be driven to the post office the next morning by Bezos himself. They didn’t have enough machinery and would even pack their orders on the floor because they didn’t have tables. Jeff’s then wife MacKenzie had to do the accounting despite having no experience for almost a year due to lack of resources. MacKenzie played an integral role in building Amazon. Despite no paid advertising, Amazon was able to get orders from all the 50 states and from over 45 countries.
Eventually Amazon grew and on May 16, 1997, it had its Initial Public Offering (IPO). As the years went by, Amazon added more and more products and also acquired many enterprises. Bezos said that the number one thing that made Amazon successful was the obsessive, compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over their competitors.
The Dot Com Bubble Crisis
During the 2000-2002 dot com tech bubble burst, many online shopping companies had to shut down. Amazon stock prices dropped drastically and many Amazon workers were laid off. Amazon was able to bounce back. In 2002 Amazon launched its web services called Amazon web services. Around this time Amazon stock prices began to rise back. In 2006, Amazon launched Kindle.
Blue Origin
In 2000 Bezos started his space tourism company called Blue Origin. Bezos may be the founder of Amazon but he considers Blue Origin to be one of the most important works he has ever done. Having seen the 1969 moon landing as a kid, Jeff mentioned that his true passion was in in space. Every year he puts a billion worth of Amazon stocks towards Blue Origin. It is said that Bezos stepped down as the CEO to Executive Chairman of Amazon in 2021 to focus on Blue Origin.
In Bezos’s own words, he states that he wants to build space infrastructure that the future generation can use just like how he used UPS, Fed Ex (postal services) to build Amazon. The aim is to enable Blue Origin to act like a delivery service to provide future entrepreneurs a foundation. The goal of the company is to build reusable space vehicles to send people and carry goods in space and to build the best vehicles for NASA’s needs. The first manned mission of Blue Origin was completed in 2021.
The controversies
Jeff Bezos has faced a lot of backlash. One of the reasons being mistreatment of Amazon workers. They have been reported to work in gruelling conditions with few bathroom breaks and unsafe working environment. Workers are overworked and underpaid. Customer satisfaction came at the cost of workers.
Another reason being minimal taxes. Despite being one of the richest man on the planet, Bezos pays minimal taxes. It is also because of the monetary policies in the USA. Most of Jeff Bezos’s wealth is concentrated in his stocks and stocks are not taxable in the USA. Wealth inequality is a major issue worldwide. People have questioned how can one person make so much money in a minute than the average person in a year?
In 2021 when Jeff Bezos announced that he was going to space, many did not take it well. There were even petitions to not allow Bezos to return to earth. They saw his actions as a billionaire flaunting off his wealth.
Critics have also claimed that the environmental cost of shipping is high. Amazon has provided us services which we did not even know we needed like one day shipping services. But this extremely fast shipping comes at the cost of not just Amazon workers but also the environment. More shipping means more vehicles on the road which in turn leads to more pollution.
A recent backlash was that a yacht built in the Netherlands for Jeff Bezos was too big for Dutch bridge. To transport the yacht, the beloved, historic Koningshaven bridge in Rotterdam might require dismantling. This has sparked anger among the locals in the city.
Interesting facts
Amazon was formerly called ‘Cadabra’ but Bezos decided to change it as it sounded too similar to cadaver.
The Amazon logo has a meaning. In the logo, the arrow begins at the ‘A’ and ends at the ‘Z’. This is to portray that Amazon sells everything from A to Z.
In 2019 when Jeff Bezos divorced MacKenzie, the divorce settlement made her the third richest woman in the US and the 21st weathiest person in the world. MacKenzie reportedly received 36 billion dollars in Amazon stock. Their divorce is claimed to be one of the most expensive divorce in history.
Conclusion
This behemoth company Amazon began at a garage. Today Amazon operates in 13 countries, and employs over 1.3 million workers globally. Amazon has transformed the retail industry and accelerated e-commerce not just in the US but globally. Amazon wasn’t an overnight success. It took years ranging almost three decades to reach its glory going through several ups and downs. It is amazing how one idea can bring so much change in our daily lives through years of effort. Despite what the critics say about Jeff Bezos, it would be wrong to say that he hasn’t brought a huge change in our lives. It doesn’t matter where one comes from, even failures can’t stop people from achieving great heights if one has perseverance and hard work.
