There will probably be someone who does not know the name of Amazon or Jeff Bezos or who has never heard of this name before.
Amazon is the most used e-commerce platform across the world, so obviously the hard work behind his success would also be the same. Today in this post we are covering Jeff Bezos Story just to inspire you to do better in your life.
The story of this hard work is of the man, because of which Amazon is at this stage today, Jeff Bezos -the wealthiest person until a few years ago & a great visionary.This is the life highlights of the very interesting man behind the super successful e-commerce company.
Jeff Bezos is not just a businessperson who founded Amazon,his greatest contributions include enhanced internet service ,drone deliveries and space colonization. His interest in aerospace led him to found Blue Origin in 2000. Jeff Bezos is an American business magnate,born in new mexico, founder and former CEO of Amazon. He has very major role in revolutionising the e-commerce business. He is also known as a great philanthropist.
Here are some major life highlights of his inspiring life so far.
Early Life & Biography
Jeffery Preston Jorgensen better known as Jeff Bezos was born to Theodore Jorgensen and Jacklyn Jorgensen on 12th of January 1964 ( currently 58 years old) in new mexico. Jeffery was born when his parents were college students and lovebirds, both of whom got married during their college days. The couple were divorced soon, his mother moved on with marrying Mike Bezos, a Cuban immigrant, who adopted 4 years old Jeffery and renamed him as Jeff Bezos.
Jeff completed his schooling from Miami Palmetto Senior High School, when he was brought up in Miami and used to work in McDonalds as a short order line cook during the breakfast shift while studying in high school.
He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1986, with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.
Working for Filtel after graduation was the first professional job in his life. Filtel was a telecommunication company intended to build a network for international trades,that was where Jeff got the spirit of international trade through telecom networks.
At the same time while working for Filtel ,he came across a certain woman named Mackenzie Scott,novelist by profession, who later become his wife after the two fell in love and soon got married the very next year, in 1994. The same year they moved to Seattle, where Jeff decided to start an online bookshop named Cadabra which later became the international unicorn Amazon.
Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott are parents to four children – three sons and one daughter. The couple had adopted their daughter from China. Bezos likes to maintain the privacy of his children, however, reports state that the name of his 21-year-old son is Preston Bezos.
Jeff Bezos ; Career Highlights
Jeff graduated in 1986 and soon he was offered many jobs from companies like Intel ,Bell Labs and Anderson Consulting due to his degrees in computer science and electrical engineering.
Bezos chose to work for Filtel,a telecom network development brand for international trades, after two years of impressive service he got promoted to head of development and director of customer services.
From there he was further promoted to product manager at Bankers Trust ,where he developed interest in banking business,he worked there for two years from 1988 to 1990.
After four years of service in D.E. Shaw& Co. A hedge fund dealing with Mathematical modelling,in 1994 he became 4th senior Vice president of the company. So far he had developed great interest in online trading, marketing and banking,thus on 5th July 1994 he founded Cadabra an online bookshop in his garage, the company further named as Amazon.
His interest in space exploration hadn’t faded yet even after the success of Amazon . So in 2000 he founded another company Blue Origin, for aerospace spaceflight manufacturing and space colonization. Apart from this Bezos also owned The Washington Post ,the leading american newspaper for $250 million in 2013. Bezos is the co-founder of Altos labs a biotech research firm and founder of Bezos Expeditions, a venture capital firm.
The Story of Amazon & Blue origin
Amazon was initially founded as an online bookshop named Cadabra in his own garage on 5th July 1994. The company was further named as Amazon in honour of the Amazon river in South America.The company was started with an initial investment of $300,000 which he borrowed from his parents.Jeff extended company’s offering products as usual of his pre-decided intentions.Launching an IPO of Amazon was also great step in his journey.
He further expanded company’s offering to online sale of music and video albums, and by the end of 1998 he included consumer good products too.Amazon was giving good returns and running very well, so he decided to further expand it with some great funds.Borrowing $2 billion from American Banks to expand the company resulted in big failure and huge loses.
The time was very bad for amazon. Fortunately, taking a rebound from instability Amazon resulted in the profit of $400 million in 2003 and from there Bezos never looked back yet.
The profit was followed with the launch of Kindle, an e-book reader in 2007 for which in2011, he was given an Innovation Award along with Gregg zehr. As digitalization spreaded across the world, Amazon recognised as the biggest shopping retailer and e-commerce platform by the year 2013, and Jeff began to be counted among the richest persons in the world.
On 27th July 2017,Jeff Bezos tookover Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and became richest person on earth. At that time he has net worth of $90 billion, the milestone achievement was followed by the increment in his net worth to $100 billion in September of the same year.
On 5th of July 2021, exactly after 27 years of founding Amazon ,Bezos resigned from the Chief Executive of Amazon.
His current net worth is estimated at $ 150.1 billion.
Founding BlueOrigin was the implement of the vision to develope space travel technologies and space colonization. Another vision behind founding Blue Origin is to lowering the expense of human space flight and improving the safety of extraterrestrial travel.
In September 2011,one of the company’s prototype vehicles crashed. On 20th July 2021,Jeff Bezos along with his brother took a flight into space on his own rocket made by BlueOrigin.
Bezos is counted among the three billionaires prioritizing spaceflights , with Richard Branson & Elon Musk.
Great Philanthropist
Bezos is Widely recognised for His philanthropic works too . He is very known name in donating to the needys. Donating Alma mater ,a college in Princeton University, the amount of $ 15 million was the first ever registered donation by him.
He never steps aside to help medical depriveds ,he donated $35 million to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center in the Seattle.He then donated $ 500,000 to the World Reader,a non profit organization founded by a former Amazon employee in 2013.
In 2017 he donated $1million to the press community and the very next year he announced to donate $ 2 billion to fund the American homeless to establish a non-profit school.
Starting the Day 1 fund initiative was also in great philanthropic works he has done so far. Along with wife Mackenzie Bezos,Jeff started the philanthropic fund of $ 2 billion to perform two different visions.The first of them in Bezos Day 1 fund is Day 1 Family fund to help homeless, by providing them all needed service along with other organizations.
The 2nd Day 1 Academies fund will govern, establishing and operating of a network of standard, Mountessori-Inspired schools offering full scholarships to all the students.
Before execution and announcement of this plan, Jeff Had tweeted that ” Mackenzie and I share a belief in the potential for hard work from anyone to serve others. We all have that capacity.”
Honours & Awards
•In 1999,he was named as Person of the Year by Times.
• In 2008, he was selected as one of America’s best leaders by U.S. News & World Report.
•Also the same year in 2008,Bezos was awarded an honorary doctorate in science and technology from Carnegie Mellon University .
•In 2011, an Innovation Award was given to Bezos and Gregg Zehr for the Amazon Kindle.
•In 2012, Bezos was named Businessperson of the Year by Fortune.
•He is also a member of the Bilderberg Group and attended the 2011 Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and the 2013 conference in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. He was a member of the Executive Committee of The Business Council in 2011 and 2012.
2014 – 2018, he was ranked as the best-performing CEO in the world by Harvard Business Review.
•With the Top name in list in 2015, he has been featured in Fortune’s list of 50 great leaders of the world for three straight years.
• Bezos was elected by the National Academy of Engineering for “leadership and innovation in space exploration, autonomous systems, and building a commercial pathway for human space flight” by the National Academy of Engineering ,in February 2021.
•In March 2018, he was awarded the Buzz Aldrin Space Exploration Award in recognition of his work with Blue Origin at the Explorers Club annual dinner.
Some famous quotes by Jeff Bezos
“If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we’ll turn out all right.”
― Jeff Bezos
“If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.”
“Invention is by its very nature disruptive. If you want to be understood at all times, then don’t do anything new.”
“We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details….”
“People who are right most of the time are people who change their minds often.”
“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.”
“We can’t be in survival mode. We have to be in growth mode.”
“Work Hard, have fun, make history”
“If you never want to be criticized, for goodness’ sake don’t do anything new.”
“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”
“The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.”
“In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.”
“Your margin is my opportunity”
These are some of the famous quotes by Jeff Bezos.
Conclusion
There is nothing new to be said about Jeff Bezos.A very inspiring, hard working ,straightforward & unpredictable man.Jeff lives the life of meaningfulness before & after everything he has. The very sucessful businessman ,visionary, welfare Worker,philanthropist who has a number of Awards and honours,Bezos is a real inspiration for all of us. Through this article we have tried to bring for you an inspiration through his life highlights. If you like the article don’t forget to drop the comment.