Jeff BEzos
Birthname Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos Birthdate January 12, 1964 Birthplace Albuquerque, New Mexico Education Princeton University, River Oaks Elementary School, Miami Palmetto High School Profession Tech Mogul Net worth $196,000,000,000 Source of Wealth Internet retailing (Amazon) Nationality United States Country United States Marital Status Divorced (Mackenzie Bezos)Quick Links
Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, investor and the creator of the multi-national e-commerce company, Amazon, with a net worth of $196 Billion, according to Business Insider.
He was born to teen parents, Ted Jorgensen and Jacklyn Bezos in Albuquerque, and they later divorced and his mother remarried to Mike Bezos. Though his parents were not wealthy, Bezos's maternal grandparents owned a ranch in Texas, and it is there he says he learned the importance of hard work. Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986, with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked on Wall Street from 1986 to early 1994 in different fields, and eventually Bezos founded Amazon in late 1994.
He wrote the business plan while he and his then wife, Mackenzie, drove from Texas to Seattle. They chose to name it Amazon.com after the river and because it would show up first on lists ordered alphabetically. The company began to float on the stock market in 1997 and showed its first profits in 2001. The company began in their garage as an online bookstore and has since grown to selling a wide variety of other products like video games, electronics, clothes, furniture, food and toys . Amazon is now one of the world's largest online companies by revenue and the world's largest provider of virtual assistants.
Jeff and MacKenzie met in 1992 when they both worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw. There, Jeff worked as a financial analyst. They got married the next year and moved to Seattle in 1994 together, which was the beginning of Amazon. Just like Jeff, Mackenzie was a student of the author Toni Morrison at Princeton and worked as her research assistant. The couple was married for 25 years and have 4 children together. Unfortunately, the couple divorced mid 2019 because Bezos allegedly was having an affair with former TV anchor and pilot, Lauren Sanchez. The divorce was costly for him: Jeff had to give her 25% of his Amazon stake, which was 4% of the company. The shares were worth $38 billion in 2019, making this the most expensive divorce settlement in history; the previous record was $2.5 billion paid to Jocelyn Wildenstein in 1999. Mackenzie changed her last name from Bezos to Scott in 2020, and currently she is the fourth richest woman in the world with a net worth of $52.1 billion.
Though the divorce was costly for Bezos, he still recovered because the pandemic increased his revenue. In 2019, his company amassed $280.5 billion in revenues and made a record $11.5 billion in net profit. Between March and April 2020, during the pandemic, Amazon claims it hired 175,000 additional workers. Online businesses were boosted in the pandemic, and Amazon was the top beneficiary.
However Amazon still faced criticism from the general public for its treatment of warehouse workers. Following constant backlash, Bezos announced on February 2nd 2021 he would be resigning as the CEO of Amazon. Instead, he will be focusing on Blue Origin, his aerospace company that is focused on developing rockets for commercial use. Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2006. He always had an interest in space travel and the development of human life in the solar system.
Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which he purchased on August 5, 2013 for $250 million at the suggestion of his friend, Don Graham. He established Nash Holdings to serve as a holding company through which he would own the newspaper. The sale closed on October 1, 2013, and Nash Holdings took control. Since then, The Washington Post has had a surge in online readership in 2016 and became profitable for the first time since Bezos purchased it.
Jeff also is an investor; he owns a venture capitalist company named Bezos Expeditions. He makes personal investments and donations through the company. He was one of the first shareholders in Google, where he invested $250,000 in 1998, which resulted in 3.3 million shares of Google stock worth about $3.1 billion as of 2017. Bezos has invested in Unity Biotechnology, a life-extension research firm aiming to stop aging. He has also invested in the healthcare sector, including companies like Grail, Unity Biotechnology, Zoc Doc and Juno Therapeutics.
Bezos is also a donor and philanthropist through the Bezos Expeditions. He has funded an Innovation center at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry and the Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics at Princeton Neuroscience Institute. As of April 2020, Bezos said he will give $100 million to Feed America, a nonprofit charity organization that operates food banks and food pantries across the United States.
SOURCES : BEZOS EXPEDITIONS, Business Insider,Forbes,Town and Country, The Guardian, Celeb Answers
This article was updated on March 9, 2021 by Vanessa Shumbanhete
Earnings & Financial Data
Date | Category | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
2021 | Earnings | Amazon Profits | $7,200,000,000 |
2020 | Earnings | Amazon Profits | $21,330,000,000 |
2019 | Earnings | Amazon Profits | $11,590,000,000 |
2018 | Earnings | Amazon Profits | $10,070,000,000 |
2017 | Earnings | Amazon Profits | $3,030,000,000 |
2016 | Earnings | Amazon Profits | $2,370,000,000 |
2015 | Earnings | Amazon Profits | $600,000,000 |
2012 | Salary | Total compensation from Amazon | $1,680,000 |
2012 | Asset | Amount paid by Bezos for the purchase of Washington Post | $250,000,000 |
2012 | Earning Turned Donation | Amount given to fund the first full-scale "Clock of the Long Now" | $42,000,000 |
2012 | Sale of Asset | In Nov 2013, he earned around $260 million for selling 1 million shares of Amazon | $260,000,000 |
2011 | Earning Turned Donation | In July, 2012, Bezos and his wife reportedly donated $250 million to pass a same-sex marriage referendum in Washington | $2,500,000 |
2011 | Earning Turned Donation | Since 1977 to Sept 2012, Bezos donated a total of $16 thousand to US Democrats | $16,000 |
2011 | Earning Turned Donation | Since 1977 to Sept 2012, Bezos donated a total of $2 thousand to US Republicans | $2,000 |
2011 | Earning Turned Donation | Since 1977 to Sept 2012, Bezos donated a total of $55 thousand to Special Interests | $55,000 |
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