Jeff Bezos: Life, Career, Amazon

Bezos, an American entrepreneur, and billionaire isn’t just famous for his money, but for his brilliant initiatives as well. He is the founder of Amazon an online e-commerce store and Blue origin a space company focused on making space travel affordable for the middle class. He is also the owner of the Washington Post, which he legally acquired in 2013. Through the creation of Amazon Bezos became one of the pioneers of e-commerce by taking shopping off brick-and-mortar, and bringing it to the audience screens.

Net Worth

He is currently the world's richest man, three times in a row, with a net worth of $145.3 Billion (as of May 27, 2020).

Early Life

Jeffery Preston Bezos was born in a small town in New Mexico, Albuquerque on the 12^th of January 1964. He was born to Ted Jorgenson (biological father) and Jacklyn Bezos (biological mother), the marriage broke apart a few years after the birth of Bezos. His mother later got remarried to a Cuban immigrant Mike Bezos.

In his early years, Bezos showed so much interest in the mechanical field alongside his deep scientific interest which only further influenced his choice of academic and career pursuit. He spent his summers at the ranch working on different tasks like repairing windmills, pipe laying, vaccinating the cattle and other handy works he could lay his hands on. His parents supported him by letting him convert the garage into a laboratory.

Education

He furthered his scientific interest by attending Princeton University where he met his wife Mckenzie. He graduated from Princeton with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. As he grew, his love for computers and technology increased which also influenced his choice of study at Princeton. He later revealed that he initially chose Princeton to study physics, but the interest changed once he got there, and he decided to take double honors in Computer science and electrical engineering.  At high school, Miami palmetto Senior High Scool he started his first business, the Dream Institute, which was an educational summer camp for the fourth, fifth, and six graders. He later graduated as the valedictorian of his class and as a National Merit Scholar which helped him reserve a spot at Princeton University.

Early Career

He started with a career in Finance once he graduated from Princeton University. H worked with a few firms on Wall Street, some of which are Bankers Trust, D.E Shaw, an investment firm, and Fitel. By 1990, he became the youngest vice president at D.E Shaw. His vast knowledge of computer science, electrical engineering, and finance only prepared him for greater responsibility—e-commerce. E-commerce was likely going to be a great risk he was willing to take; quitting his fiancé job and focusing on building his store. In 1994, he eventually quit his job and relocated to Seattle where he was able to explore the internet market opportunities. A few months later, he had an online bookstore running.

Amazon.com

Quitting his finance job at D.E Shaw in 1994, Bezos was able to raise $1million from his family and friends. He used the raised funds to establish his business in his garage. He and his wife, Mckenzie converted their two-room house into a workspace with the garage as the Amazon powerhouse. Amazon.com officially kicked off on the 16^th of July, 1995, but went public two years later. Amazon.com started as an online book store, by 1998 other commodities like CDs, videos, toys, electronics, and clothes were being sold on Amazon. Eventually, the sales extended to full-time retail partnerships. At the inception of Amazon, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that there was no need for taxes to be paid on email ordered catalogs. This stood as a great benefit for Bezos as he didn’t need to pay a dime as tax for the commodities he sold on the internet.

On July 5^th, 1994, Bezos incorporated his business as 'Cadabra' then later changed it to Makeitso.com. The business name underwent quite a few changes and modifications until Bezos eventually settled for 'Amazon'. Once the garage workspace was fully set up and Amazon.com ready to launch, Bezos got 300 people to test run the site to make sure it did what it was designed for. Through word-of-mouth, the 300 were able to spread the word about Amazon. By September 1995, the book sales had doubled up to $20,000 per week. Bezos saw a problem with brick-n-mortar stores and decided to provide a solution to it while making a profit.

By 1997, Amazon finally went public with an IPO as more people were brought on board. Strategically selecting his team, Bezos recruited people from DESCO, Barnes & Noble, Symantec, and Microsoft to join his team. By 2006, the company launched the video-on-demand service on its website which was first known as ‘Amazon Unbox on Tivo' but was later renamed Amazon Instant Video.

Quite many online stores kicked off before and after Amazon, however, Amazon emerged successfully with yearly sales of $510,000 from 1995 and surprisingly increased above $17 billion by 2011. In September 2018, Amazon's value was recorded to be above $1 trillion which makes it the second company to hit that target, shortly after apple. As of 2018, Amazon hit 100 million paid subscribers for the new Amazon prime.

With the introduction of other commodities, Amazon gradually evolved from an online bookstore to a full-time e-commerce store. However, it never lost its original idea of an online bookstore. Through Kindle, the company was able to expand its bookstore opportunities to its reader community. Kindle was officially released in 2007, as a digital book reader which allowed readers to access books of all kinds. By 2011, the Kindle Fire was released, and subsequently, the Kindle Fire HD.

Bezos decided to 'spice' up the Amazon experience by proposing the 'Amazon Prime Air' which would be designed to make direct deliveries to customers by drones. The drones would be able to carry items that weigh about 5 pounds within a 10-miles range from Amazon’s distribution center.

In recent times, Amazon has also begun to pose as a threat for bigtime grocery stores by including grocery delivery to its list particularly whole grains within two hours of order. This service is available to Amazon Prime customers.