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= Jeff Bezos =
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Introduction
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Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ; ; born January 12, 1964) is an American
businessman, and the founder, executive chairman, and former president
and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing
company. According to the 'Bloomberg Billionaires Index' and 'Forbes',
he was the world's wealthiest person from 2017 to 2021, and in 2026
his net worth was approximately US$284 billion.
Bezos was born in Albuquerque, and raised in Houston and Miami. He
graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with a degree in
engineering. He worked on Wall Street in a variety of related fields
from 1986 to early 1994. He founded Amazon in mid-1994 on a road trip
from New York City to Seattle. The company began as an online
bookstore and expanded to a variety of other e-commerce products and
services, including video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and
artificial intelligence. It is the world's largest online sales
company, the largest Internet company by revenue, and the largest
provider of virtual assistants and cloud infrastructure services
through its Amazon Web Services branch.
Bezos founded the aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight
services company Blue Origin in 2000, and he flew into space on Blue
Origin NS-16 in 2021. He purchased the major American newspaper 'The
Washington Post' in 2013 and manages many other investments through
his venture capital firm, Bezos Expeditions.
The first centibillionaire on the 'Forbes' Real Time Billionaires
Index, Bezos was named the "richest man in modern history" after his
net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018 (value=150000000000).
On July 5, 2021, Bezos took over the role of executive chairman and
stepped down as the CEO and president of Amazon, succeeded by Amazon
Web Services CEO Andy Jassy.
Early life and education
======================================================================
Bezos was born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen on January 12, 1964, in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Jacklyn ('née' Gise; 1946-2025) and Ted
Jorgensen (1944-2015). At the time of his birth, his mother was a
17-year-old high-school student and his father was 19. Ted was a
Danish American unicyclist born in Chicago to a family of Baptists.
After completing high school despite challenging conditions, Jacklyn
attended night school, bringing her baby with her. Jeff attended a
Montessori school in Albuquerque when he was two.
Ted struggled with alcohol and with his finances. Jacklyn left her
husband to live with her parents, filing for divorce in June 1965 when
Jeff was 17 months old. After his parents divorced, his mother married
Cuban immigrant Miguel "Mike" Bezos in April 1968. Shortly after the
wedding, Mike adopted 4-year-old Jeff, whose surname was then legally
changed from Jorgensen to Bezos. Jacklyn, her husband, and her son
left the area and asked Ted to discontinue contact, to which he
agreed.
After Mike received his degree from the University of New Mexico, the
family moved to Houston, Texas, so that he could begin working as an
engineer for Exxon. Jeff attended River Oaks Elementary School in
Houston from fourth to sixth grade. Jeff's maternal grandfather was
Lawrence Preston Gise, a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC) in Albuquerque.
Gise retired early to his family's ranch near Cotulla, Texas, where
his grandson would spend many summers in his youth and which he would
later purchase and expand from 25000 acre to 160000 acre. Jeff
displayed scientific interests and technological proficiency and once
rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger half-siblings out of his
room. The family moved to Miami, Florida, where Jeff attended Miami
Palmetto High School. In high school, he worked at McDonald's as a
short-order line cook during the breakfast shift.
Bezos attended the Student Science Training Program at the University
of Florida. He was high school valedictorian, a National Merit
Scholar, and a Silver Knight Award winner in 1982. In his graduation
speech, Bezos spoke about the possibility of human space colonization.
A local newspaper quoted him as saying that he hoped humanity would
eventually move heavy industry and large populations into space while
preserving Earth as "a huge national park".
After graduating from high school in 1982, Bezos attended Princeton
University. He initially majored in physics but later switched to
electrical engineering and computer science. In 2018, during a talk at
the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Bezos revealed that, some
thirty years ago, his Princeton classmate Yasantha Rajakarunanayake
had defeated him in solving a mathematical problem, causing him to
give up on his dreams of becoming a theoretical physicist.
Bezos was a member of the Quadrangle Club, one of Princeton's 11
eating clubs. Additionally, he was the president of the Princeton
chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
(SEDS). He had a 4.2 GPA and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Tau
Beta Pi. Bezos graduated from Princeton in 1986 with a Bachelor of
Science in Engineering (BSE), 'summa cum laude'.
Early career
==============
After Bezos graduated from college in 1986, he was offered positions
at Intel, Bell Labs, and Andersen Consulting, among others. He first
worked at Fitel, a financial technology telecommunications start-up,
where he was tasked with building a network for international trade.
Bezos was promoted to head of development and director of customer
service. He transitioned into the banking industry when he became a
product manager at Bankers Trust from 1988 to 1990. From 1990 to 1994,
he worked at D. E. Shaw & Co, a newly created hedge fund with a
strong emphasis on mathematical modeling. Bezos became D. E. Shaw's
fourth senior vice president by age 30.
Amazon
========
In spring 1994, Bezos read that web usage was growing at a rate of
2,300% a year and eventually decided to establish an online bookstore.
He and his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, left their jobs at D. E. Shaw
and founded Amazon in a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington on July
5, 1994, after writing its business plan on a cross-country drive from
New York City to Seattle. Bezos led the company's early development
while MacKenzie Scott handled bookkeeping, financial administration,
and some of Amazon's early freight negotiations during its startup
phase. Before choosing Seattle as Amazon's headquarters, Bezos
reportedly explored locating the company on a Native American
reservation near San Francisco, partly because of potential tax
advantages.
Bezos initially named his new company Cadabra but later changed the
name to Amazon after the Amazon River in South America, in part
because the name begins with the letter 'A', which is at the beginning
of the alphabet. At the time, website listings were alphabetized, so a
name starting with "A" would appear sooner when customers conducted
online searches. In addition, he regarded "Amazon," the name of the
world's largest river, as fitting for what he hoped would become the
world's largest online bookstore. He accepted an estimated $300,000
(value=300000) from his parents as an investment in Amazon. He warned
many early investors that there was a 70% chance that Amazon would
fail or go bankrupt. Although Amazon was originally an online
bookstore, Bezos had always planned to expand to other products. Three
years after Bezos founded Amazon, he took it public with an initial
public offering (IPO). In response to critical reports from Fortune
and Barron's, Bezos maintained that the growth of the internet would
overtake competition from larger book retailers such as Borders and
Barnes & Noble.
In 1998, Bezos diversified into the online sale of music and video,
and by the end of the year he had expanded the company's product
offerings to include a variety of other consumer goods. Bezos used
funds raised during the company's 1997 equity offering
(value=54000000) to finance the acquisition of smaller internet
companies during the dot-com expansion period. Among these
acquisitions were a purchase of a majority stake in Pets.com in 1999
and a purchase of a portion of Kozmo.com for $60 million
(value=60000000), both of which failed after the dot-com bubble
collapse in 2000. By the end of 2000, Bezos borrowed $2 billion from
banks (value=2000000000), as Amazon's cash balances dipped to only
$350 million (value=350000000). However, the company continued to
expand despite its losses, and in 2002, Bezos led Amazon to launch
Amazon Web Services, which compiled data from weather channels and
website traffic. Revenues stagnated later that year, and after the
company nearly went bankrupt, Bezos closed distribution centers and
laid off 14% of the Amazon workforce. In 2003, Amazon rebounded from
financial instability and turned a profit of $35 million
(value=35000000).
In November 2007, Bezos launched the Amazon Kindle. According to a
2008 'Time' profile, Bezos wished to create a device that allowed a
"flow state" in reading similar to the experience of video games. In
2013, Bezos secured a $600-million contract (value=600000000) with the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on behalf of Amazon Web Services. In
October of that year, Amazon was recognized as the largest online
shopping retailer in the world.
In May 2016, Bezos sold slightly more than one million shares of his
holdings in the company for $671 million (value=671000000), the
largest sum he had ever raised from selling some of his Amazon stock.
On August 4, 2016, Bezos sold another million of his shares for $756
million (value=756700000). A year later, Bezos took on 130,000 new
employees when he ramped up hiring at company distribution centers. By
January 19, 2018, his Amazon stock holdings had appreciated to
slightly over $109 billion (value=109000000000); months later he began
to sell stock to raise cash for other enterprises, in particular, Blue
Origin. On January 29, 2018, he was featured in Amazon's Super Bowl
commercial. On February 1, 2018, Amazon reported its highest ever
profit with quarterly earnings of $2 billion (value=2000000000). Due
to the growth of Alibaba in China, Bezos has often expressed interest
in expanding Amazon into India. On July 27, 2017, Bezos momentarily
became the world's wealthiest person over Microsoft co-founder Bill
Gates when his estimated net worth increased to just over $90 billion
(value=90000000000). His wealth surpassed $100 billion for the first
time on November 24, 2017 (value=100000000000), and he was formally
designated the wealthiest person in the world by 'Forbes' on March 6,
2018, with a net worth of $112 billion (value=112000000000).
In March 2018, Bezos dispatched Amit Agarwal, Amazon's global senior
vice president, to India with $5.5 billion (value=5500000000) to
localize operations throughout the company's supply chain routes.
Later in the month, U.S. President Donald Trump accused Amazon and
Bezos, specifically, of sales tax avoidance, misusing postal routes,
and anti-competitive business practices. Amazon's share price fell by
9% in response to the President's negative comments; this reduced
Bezos's personal wealth by $10.7 billion (value=10700000000). Weeks
later, Bezos recouped his losses when academic reports out of Stanford
University indicated that Trump could do little to regulate Amazon in
any meaningful way. During July 2018, a number of members of the U.S.
Congress called on Bezos to detail the applications of Amazon's face
recognition software, Rekognition.
Criticism of Amazon's business practices continued in September 2018
when Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Stop Bad Employers by
Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS) Act and accused Amazon of receiving
corporate welfare. This followed revelations by the non-profit group
New Food Economy which found that one third of Amazon workers in
Arizona, and one tenth of Amazon workers in Pennsylvania and Ohio,
relied on food stamps. While preparing to introduce the bill, Sanders
opined: "Instead of attempting to explore Mars or go to the moon, how
about Jeff Bezos pays his workers a living wage?" He later said:
"Bezos could play a profound role. If he said today, nobody who is
employed at Amazon will receive less than a living wage, it would send
a message to every corporation in America." Sanders's efforts elicited
a response from Amazon which pointed to the 130,000 jobs it created in
2017 and called the $28,446 figure (value=28,446) for its median
salary "misleading" as it included part-time workers. However, Sanders
countered that the companies targeted by his proposal have placed an
increased focus on part-time workers to escape benefit obligations. On
October 2, 2018, Bezos announced a company-wide wage increase, which
Sanders applauded. The American workers who were being paid the
minimum wage had this increased to $15 per hour (value=15), a decision
that was interpreted as support for the Fight for $15 movement.
In February 2021, Bezos announced that in the third quarter of 2021 he
would step down from his role as CEO of Amazon to become the Executive
Chairman of the Amazon Board. He was succeeded as CEO by Andy Jassy.
On February 2, 2021, Bezos sent an email to all Amazon employees,
telling them the transition would give him "the time and energy [he]
need[s] to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin,
The Washington Post, and [his] other passions." In February 2024,
Bezos sold 24 million shares in Amazon at a total value of $4 billion.
Bezos announced that he intended to sell 50 million shares in Amazon
over the next year. During an interview at the DealBook Summit in
December 2024, Bezos said that he was dedicating 95% of his time to
artificial intelligence initiatives at Amazon.
Blue Origin
=============
In September 2000, Bezos founded Blue Origin, a human spaceflight
startup. Bezos has long expressed an interest in space travel and the
development of human life in the Solar System. His 1982 high school
valedictorian senior graduation speech was followed up with a 'Miami
Herald' interview in which he expressed an interest to build and
develop hotels, amusement parks, and colonies for human beings who
were in orbit. The 18-year-old Bezos stated that he wanted to preserve
Earth from overuse through resource depletion. Rob Meyerson led Blue
Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president.
After its founding, Blue Origin maintained a low profile until 2006
when it purchased a large tract of land in West Texas for a launch and
test facility. After the company gained the public's attention during
the late 2000s, Bezos additionally indicated his interest in reducing
the cost of space travel for humans while also increasing the safety
of extraterrestrial travel. In September 2011, one of the company's
uncrewed prototype vehicles crashed during a short-hop test flight.
Although the crash was viewed as a setback, news outlets noted how far
the company went from its founding-to-date in advancing spaceflight.
After the crash, Bezos has been superstitiously wearing his "lucky"
Texas Cowboy boots to all rocket launches. In May 2013, Bezos met with
Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Galactic, to discuss commercial
spaceflight opportunities and strategies. He has been compared to
Branson and Elon Musk as all three are billionaires who prioritize
spaceflight among their business interests.
In 2015, Bezos announced that a new orbital launch vehicle was under
development and would make its first flight in the late-2010s. Later
in November, Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle successfully
rocketed into space and reached its planned test altitude of 329,839
feet (100.5 kilometers) before executing a vertical landing back at
the launch site in West Texas. In 2016, Bezos allowed select
journalists to visit, tour, and photograph his facility. He has
repeatedly called for increased inter-space energy and industrial
manufacturing to decrease the negative costs associated with
business-related pollution.
In December 2017, New Shepard successfully flew and landed dummy
passengers, amending and pushing its human space travel start date
into late 2018. To execute this program, Blue Origin built six of the
vehicles to support all phases of testing and operations: no-passenger
test flights, flights with test passengers, and commercial-passenger
weekly operations. Since 2016, Bezos has spoken more freely about his
hopes to colonize the solar system, and has been selling $1 billion in
Amazon stock each year to capitalize Blue Origin in an effort to
support this endeavor. In May 2018, Bezos maintained that the primary
goal of Blue Origin is to preserve the natural resources of Earth by
making the human species multi-planetary. He announced that 'New
Shepard' would begin transporting humans into sub-orbital space by
November 2018. In July 2018, it was announced that Bezos had priced
commercial spaceflight tickets from $200,000 to $300,000 per person.
Spaceflight
=============
On July 20, 2021, he launched on the NS-16 mission with his
half-brother Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen. He launched
nine days after Richard Branson launched on board the Virgin Galactic
Unity 22 mission. Bezos's suborbital flight lasted over 10 minutes,
reaching a peak altitude of 66.5 mi.
''The Washington Post''
=========================
On August 5, 2013, Bezos announced his purchase of 'The Washington
Post' for $250 million in cash (value=250000000), at the suggestion of
his friend, Don Graham. To execute the purchase, he established
limited liability company 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. In March 2014, Bezos made his
first significant change at 'The Washington Post' and lifted the
online paywall for subscribers of a number of U.S. local newspapers in
Texas, Hawaii, and Minnesota. In January 2016, Bezos set out to
reinvent the newspaper as a media and technology company by rebuilding
its digital media, mobile platforms, and analytics software. After a
surge in online readership in 2016, the paper was profitable for the
first time since Bezos made the purchase in 2013. Bezos' ownership of
the 'Post' has been subject to scrutiny and criticism regarding his
treatment of employees as well as his influence on the paper's
content, particularly his 2024-25 involvement with the editorial and
opinion pages.
Throughout his early years of ownership of 'The Washington Post',
Bezos was accused of having a potential conflict of interest with the
paper. Bezos and the newspaper's editorial board have dismissed
accusations that he unfairly controlled the paper's content, and Bezos
maintains that the paper is independent. Bezos' treatment of employees
at 'The Washington Post' has also drawn scrutiny. In 2018, more than
400 'Washington Post' employees wrote an open letter to Bezos
criticizing the wages and benefits provided to employees. The letter
demanded "Fair wages; fair benefits for retirement, family leave and
health care; and a fair amount of job security". About 750 employees
at 'The Washington Post' went on a brief strike in December 2023 in
response to Bezos' plans to lay off staff.
In 2024, Bezos blocked the 'Washington Post's' editorial board from
endorsing Kamala Harris in the presidential election. The move was
criticized by former editor Marty Baron, who considered it to be an
act of "disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage"
and said that it would invite intimidation of Bezos by Donald Trump.
Editor-at-large Robert Kagan and columnist Michele Norris also
resigned in the wake of the decision, and editor David Maraniss said
that the paper was "dying in darkness". 'Post' opinion columnists
jointly authored an article calling the decision to not endorse a
"terrible mistake", and it was condemned by the Washington Post Guild,
a union unit representing 'Post' employees. More than 250,000 people
(about ten percent of the 'Post's' subscribers) cancelled their
subscriptions, and three members of the editorial board left it.
In February 2025, Bezos announced that the opinion section of the
'Post' will give voice to opinions that support "personal liberties"
and "free markets". David Shipley, 'The Post's' opinion editor,
resigned after trying to persuade Bezos to reconsider the new
direction. Within two days of the announcement, it was reported that
over 75,000 digital subscribers had canceled their subscriptions.
Due to his considerable influence on industry, politics, and media,
Bezos has been described as an oligarch.
Bezos Expeditions
===================
Bezos makes personal investments through his venture capital vehicle,
Bezos Expeditions. He was one of the first shareholders in Google,
when he invested $250,000 in 1998 (value=250000). That $250,000
investment resulted in 3.3 million shares of Google stock, worth about
$3.1 billion in 2017 (value=3100000000). He also invested in Unity
Biotechnology, a life-extension research firm hoping to slow or stop
the process of aging. Bezos is involved in the healthcare sector,
which includes investments in Unity Biotechnology, GRAIL, Juno
Therapeutics, and Zocdoc. In January 2018, an announcement was made
concerning Bezos's role within a new, unnamed healthcare company. This
venture, later named Haven, is expected to be a partnership between
Amazon, JPMorgan, and Berkshire Hathaway.
Bezos also supports philanthropic efforts through direct donations and
non-profit projects funded by Bezos Expeditions. Bezos used Bezos
Expeditions to fund several philanthropic projects, including an
Innovation center at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry and
the Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics at Princeton Neuroscience
Institute. In 2013, Bezos Expeditions funded the recovery of two
Saturn V first-stage Rocketdyne F-1 engines from the floor of the
Atlantic Ocean. They were positively identified as belonging to the
Apollo 11 mission's S-1C stage from July 1969. The engines are
currently on display at the Seattle Museum of Flight.
In September 2021, Bezos invested in biotechnology research company
Altos Labs.
Project Prometheus
====================
In November 2025, Bezos announced that he co-founded Project
Prometheus with former Google executive Vik Bajaj. The company will
focus on the use of artificial intelligence in engineering and the
manufacturing of computers, spacecraft, and automobiles.
Public image
======================================================================
Journalist Nellie Bowles of 'The New York Times' has described the
public persona and personality of Bezos as that of "a brilliant but
mysterious and coldblooded corporate titan". During the 1990s, Bezos
earned a reputation for relentlessly pushing Amazon forward, often at
the expense of public charity and social welfare. Journalist Mark
O'Connell criticized Bezos's relentless customer focus as "very small"
in terms of impact on humanity as a whole, a sentiment technologist
Tim O'Reilly agreed with. His business practices projected a public
image of prudence and parsimony with his own wealth and that of
Amazon. Throughout the early 2000s, he was perceived to be geeky or
nerdy.
Bezos was seen by some as needlessly quantitative and data-driven.
This perception was detailed by Alan Deutschman, who described him as
"talking in lists" and "[enumerating] the criteria, in order of
importance, for every decision he has made". Select accounts of his
persona have drawn controversy and public attention. Notably,
journalist Brad Stone wrote a book that described Bezos as a demanding
boss as well as hyper-competitive, and opined that Bezos perhaps "bet
the biggest on the Internet" out of anyone. Bezos has been
characterized as a notoriously opportunistic CEO who operates with
little concern for obstacles and externalities.
During the early 2010s, Bezos solidified his reputation for aggressive
business practices, and his public image began to shift. Bezos started
to wear tailored clothing; he weight trained, pursued a regimented
diet and began to freely spend his money. His physical transformation
has been compared to the transformation of Amazon; he is often
referred to as the metonym of the company. Since 2017, he has been
portrayed by Kyle Mooney and Steve Carell on 'Saturday Night Live',
usually as an undercutting, domineering figure. His physical
appearance increased the public's perception of him as a symbolically
dominant figure in business and in popular culture, wherein he has
been parodied as an enterprising supervillain.
In May 2014, the International Trade Union Confederation named Bezos
the "World's Worst Boss", with its general secretary Sharan Burrow
saying: "Jeff Bezos represents the inhumanity of employers who are
promoting the North American corporate model", while in 2019, 'Harvard
Business Review', which ranked Bezos the best-performing CEO for 4
years in a row since 2014, did not rank him even in the top 100,
citing Amazon's "relatively low ESG (environment, social, and
governance) scores" that reflect "risks created by working conditions
and employment policies, data security, and antitrust issues".
During the late 2010s, Bezos reversed his reputation for being
reluctant to spend money on non-business-related expenses. His
relative lack of philanthropy compared to other billionaires has drawn
a negative response from the public since 2016. Bezos has been known
to publicly contest claims made in critical articles, as exemplified
in 2015 when he sent a memo to employees denouncing a 'New York Times'
piece.
Leadership style
==================
Bezos used what he called a "regret-minimization framework" while
working at D. E. Shaw and again during the early years of Amazon. He
described this life philosophy by stating: "When I'm 80, am I going to
regret leaving Wall Street? No. Will I regret missing the beginning of
the Internet? Yes." During the 1990s and early 2000s at Amazon, he was
characterized as trying to quantify all aspects of running the
company, often listing employees on spreadsheets and basing executive
decisions on data. To push Amazon forward, Bezos developed the mantra
"Get Big Fast", establishing the company's need to scale its
operations to produce market dominance. He favored diverting Amazon
profits back into the company in lieu of allocating it amongst
shareholders in the form of dividends.
Bezos uses the term "work-life harmony" instead of the more standard
"work-life balance" because he believes that 'balance' implies that
you can only have one and not the other. He believes that work and
home life are interconnected, informing and calibrating each other.
Journalist Walt Mossberg dubbed the idea that someone who cannot
tolerate criticism or critique should not do anything new or
interesting "The Bezos Principle". Bezos does not schedule early
morning meetings and enforces a two-pizza rule--a preference that
meetings are small enough for two pizzas to feed everyone in the
boardroom. When interviewing candidates for jobs at Amazon, he has
stated he considers three inquiries: can he admire the person, can the
person raise the common standard, and under what circumstances could
the person become exemplary.
In 2018, it was reported that he met with Amazon investors for just
six hours a year. Instead of using presentation slides, Bezos requires
high-level employees to present information with six-page narratives.
Since 1998, Bezos has published an annual letter for Amazon
shareholders wherein he frequently refers to five principles: focus on
customers, not competitors; take risks for market leadership;
facilitate staff morale; build a company culture; and empower people.
Bezos maintains the email address jeff@amazon.com as an outlet for
customers to reach out to him and the company. Although he does not
respond to the emails, he forwards some of them with a question mark
in the subject line to executives, who then attempt to address the
issues. Bezos has cited Jeff Immelt of New Enterprise Associates,
Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase,
and Bob Iger of The Walt Disney Company as major influences on his
leadership style.
Recognition
======================================================================
* In 1999, Bezos received his first major award when 'Time' named him
Person of the Year.
* In 2008, he was selected by 'U.S. News & World Report' as one of
America's best leaders.
* Bezos was awarded an honorary doctorate in science and technology
from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.
* In 2011, 'The Economist' gave Bezos and Gregg Zehr an Innovation
Award 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 for 2011 and 2012, and
appointed as chairman of the organization in 2014.
* Between 2014 and 2018, he was ranked the best-performing CEO in the
world by 'Harvard Business Review'.
* He has also figured in 'Fortune's' list of 50 great leaders of the
world for three straight years, topping the list in 2015.
* In September 2016, Bezos received a $250,000 prize for winning the
Heinlein Prize for Advances in Space Commercialization, which he
donated to the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.
* In February 2018, Bezos was elected to the National Academy of
Engineering for "leadership and innovation in space exploration,
autonomous systems, and building a commercial pathway for human space
flight".
* In March 2018, at the Explorers Club annual dinner, he was awarded
the Buzz Aldrin Space Exploration Award in recognition of his work
with Blue Origin.
* He received Germany's 2018 Axel Springer Award for Business
Innovation and Social Responsibility. 'Time' magazine named him one of
the 100 most influential people in the world on five separate
occasions between 2008 and 2018.
* In 2019, Bezos was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation,
being awarded with the Jeff Bezos Freedom's Wings Award and the Kenn
Ricci Lifetime Aviation Entrepreneur Award.
*In February 2023, Bezos was presented with the Légion d'honneur, the
highest French order of merit. Bezos had been designated a member of
the Légion d'Honneur about 10 years earlier but was not available to
collect it.
Wealth
======================================================================
Annual estimates of Jeff Bezos's net worth Year Billions Change
1999 |10.1 | 0.0%
2000 |6.1 | 40.5%
2001 |2.0 | 66.6%
2002 |1.5 | 25.0%
2003 |2.5 | 66.6%
2004 |5.1 | 104%
2005 |4.1 | 19.6%
2006 |4.3 | 5.1%
2007 |8.7 | 102.3%
2008 |8.2 | 5.7%
2009 |6.8 | 17.1%
2010 |12.6 | 85.3%
2011 |18.1 | 43.7%
2012 |23.2 | 28.2%
2013 |28.9 | 24.5%
2014 |30.5 | 5.5%
2015 |50.3 | 60.9%
2016 |45.2 | 10.1%
2017 |72.8 | 61.6%
2018 |112.0 | 53.8%
Bezos first became a millionaire in 1997 after raising $54 million
(value=54000000) through Amazon's initial public offering (IPO). He
was first included on the 'Forbes' 'World's Billionaires' list in 1999
with an estimated net worth of $10.1 billion (value=10100000000),
which placed his on the 19th position in the world and 10th in the
USA. His net worth decreased to $6.1 billion a year later
(value=6100000000), a 40.5% drop. His wealth plummeted even more the
following year, dropping 66.6% to $2.0 billion (value=2000000000). He
lost $500 million the following year (value=500000000), which brought
his net worth down to $1.5 billion (value=1500000000). The following
year, his net worth increased by 66.66% to $2.5 billion
(value=2500000000). From 2005 to 2007, he quadrupled his net worth to
$8.7 billion (value=8700000000). After the 2008 financial crisis and
Great Recession, his net worth would decrease to $6.8 billion
(value=6800000000)--a 17.7% drop. His wealth rose by 85.2% in 2010,
leaving him with $12.6 billion (value=12600000000). This percentage
increase ascended him to the 43rd spot on the ranking from 68th.
After a rumor broke out that Amazon was developing a smartphone,
Bezos's net worth rose to $30.5 billion in 2014 (value=30500000000). A
year later, he entered the top ten when he increased his net worth to
a total of $50.3 billion (value=50300000000). Bezos rose to become the
fifth richest person in the world hours before market close; he gained
$7 billion in one hour (value=7000000000). By the time the 'Forbes'
list was calculated in March 2016, his net worth was registered at
$45.2 billion (value=45200000000). However, just months later in
October 2016, his wealth increased by $16.2 billion
(value=16200000000) to $66.5 billion (value=66500000000), unofficially
ranking him the third-richest person in the world, behind Warren
Buffett. After sporadic jumps in Amazon's share price, in July 2017 he
briefly unseated Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as the wealthiest
person in the world.
Bezos would continue to sporadically surpass Gates throughout the
month of October 2017 after Amazon's share price fluctuated. His net
worth surpassed $100 billion for the first time on November 24, 2017
(value=100000000000), after Amazon's share price increased by more
than 2.5%. When the 2017 list was issued, Bezos's net worth was
registered at $72.8 billion (value=72800000000), adding $27.6 billion
from the previous year (value=27600000000). His wealth's rapid growth
from 2016 to 2017 sparked a variety of assessments about how much
money Bezos earned on a controlled, reduced time scale. On October 10,
2017, he made an estimated $6.24 billion (value=6240000000) in 5
minutes, slightly less than the then annual gross domestic product of
Kyrgyzstan.
On March 6, 2018, Bezos was designated the wealthiest person in the
world, with a registered net worth of $112 billion
(value=112000000000). He unseated Bill Gates ($90 billion,
value=90000000000), who was $6 billion (value=6000000000) ahead of
Warren Buffett ($84 billion, value=84000000000), ranked third. He is
considered the first registered centi-billionaire (not adjusted for
inflation).
Bezos's net worth increased by $33.6 billion (value=33600000000) from
January 2017 to January 2018. Following a report by 'Quartz'
highlighting Bezos' wealth, Amazon workers in Poland, Germany, and
Spain participated in demonstrations and labor strikes draw attention
to his growing wealth and the lack of compensation, labor rights, and
satisfactory working conditions of select Amazon workers. On July 17,
2018, he was designated the "wealthiest person in modern history" by
the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 'Fortune', 'MarketWatch', 'The Wall
Street Journal', and 'Forbes'.
In 2019, Bezos's wealth was reduced by the divorce from his wife
MacKenzie Bezos. According to 'Forbes', had the Washington state
common law applied to their divorce without a prenuptial agreement,
Bezos's wealth could have been equitably divided with his ex-wife;
however, she eventually received 25% of Bezos's Amazon shares, then
valued at approximately $36 billion (value=36000000000), making her
the third-richest woman in the world. Bezos retained his interest in
'The Washington Post' and Blue Origin, as well as voting control of
the shares received by his ex-wife.
In June 2019, Bezos purchased three adjoining apartments overlooking
Madison Square Park in Manhattan, including a penthouse, for a
combined total of $80 million (value=80000000), making this one of the
most expensive real estate purchases within New York City in 2019.
Bezos had also purchased three adjoining apartments at 25 Central Park
West in Manhattan for $7.65 million in 1999 (value=7650000); he bought
a fourth unit in that building for $5.3 million in 2012
(value=5300000).
In February 2020, Bezos purchased the Warner Estate from David Geffen
for $165 million (value=165000000), a record price paid for a
residence in the Los Angeles area. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it
was reported that Bezos's fortune had grown by $24 billion
(value=24000000000), citing a surge in demand from households on
lockdown shopping on Amazon. He further expanded his residential
holdings in February 2022, purchasing a $16.1 million apartment at a
24-story boutique condominium (value=16100000), located across from
Madison Square Park in the Flatiron neighborhood, where he already
owns all the units on the top floor. Bezos is the owner of the 'Y721',
a luxury superyacht estimated to cost more than $500,000,000
(value=500000000); it is the largest yacht in the world. According to
'Forbes' Bezos was the second-wealthiest person in America and the
third-wealthiest person in the world in 2023.
Bezos added a remote 14-acre estate on La Perouse Bay in Maui,
encircled by inactive lava fields, to his real estate holdings for $78
million in 2022 (value=78000000).
As of May 2026, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranks Bezos the
fourth wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of
$279 billion.
Personal life
======================================================================
In 1992, while working for D. E. Shaw in Manhattan, Bezos met novelist
MacKenzie Tuttle, who was a research associate at the firm; the couple
married a year later. In 1994, they moved across the country to
Seattle, Washington, where Bezos founded Amazon. Bezos and his ex-wife
MacKenzie are the parents of four children: three sons, and a daughter
adopted from China.
In March 2003, Bezos was a passenger in a helicopter that crashed in
West Texas while surveying land to buy for Blue Origin; the other
three occupants in the helicopter were pilot Charles "Cheater" Bella,
Amazon lawyer Elizabeth Korrell, and local rancher Ty Holland. All
survived; Bezos sustained only minor injuries and was discharged from
a local hospital the same day.
Bezos portrayed a Starfleet official in the 2016 movie 'Star Trek
Beyond', and joined the cast and crew at a San Diego Comic-Con
screening. He had lobbied Paramount for the role apropos of Alexa and
his personal/professional interest in speech recognition. His one line
consisted of a response to an alien in distress: "Speak Normally." In
his initial discussion of the project which became Alexa with his
technical advisor Greg Hart in 2011, Bezos told him that the goal was
to create "the 'Star Trek' computer." Bezos's family corporation
Zefram LLC is named after Zefram Cochrane, a character from 'Star
Trek'.
In January 2019, Bezos and his wife MacKenzie released a joint
statement which revealed that they would be getting divorced after 25
years together. Subsequently, 'National Enquirer' revealed that Bezos
had an affair with media personality Lauren Sánchez; the affair with
Sánchez had lasted for months. Later, Bezos published an online essay
on February 7, 2019, in which he accused American Media, Inc. owner
David Pecker of "extortion and blackmail" for threatening to publish
intimate photos of Bezos and current girlfriend Lauren Sánchez if he
did not stop his investigation into how his text messages and other
photos had been leaked to the 'National Enquirer'. Media reports have
accused Sánchez's brother Michael of being the source for the photos
obtained by 'National Enquirer'; however, Bezos has speculated that it
may have been the Saudi Arabian government.
On April 4, 2019, the divorce was finalized, with Bezos keeping 75% of
the couple's Amazon stock and MacKenzie getting the remaining 25%
($35.6 billion, value=35600000000). However, Bezos would keep all of
the couple's voting rights. Sánchez and Bezos became engaged in May
2023. The couple married in Venice on June 27, 2025, with the ceremony
attracting mainstream media attention and various celebrities.
Bezos is the Honorary Chair of the Explorers Club.
Bezos is a member of an investment consortium that purchased a
minority stake in Liverpool F.C. in August 2026.
Politics
======================================================================
According to public campaign finance records, Bezos supported the
electoral campaigns of Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, two Democratic
U.S. senators from Washington. He has also supported Democrats U.S.
representative John Conyers, as well as Patrick Leahy and Republican
Spencer Abraham, U.S. senators serving on committees dealing with
Internet-related issues. Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos have supported
the legalization of same-sex marriage, and in 2012 contributed $2.5
million (value=2500000) to Washington United for Marriage, a group
supporting a yes vote on Washington Referendum 74, which affirmed a
same-sex marriage law enacted in the state. Bezos donated $100,000
(value=100000) towards a movement against a Washington state income
tax in 2010 for "top earners". In 2012, he donated to Amazon's
political action committee (PAC), which has given $56,000
(value=56000) and $74,500 (value=74,500) to Democrats and Republicans,
respectively.
In 2014, Amazon won a bid for a cloud computing contract with the CIA
valued at $600 million (value=600000000). A 2018, $10 billion contract
(value=10000000000) known as the Joint Enterprise Defense
Infrastructure (JEDI) project, this time with the Pentagon, was
allegedly written up in a way that favors Amazon. Controversy over
this was raised when General James Mattis accepted a headquarters tour
invitation from Bezos and coordinated the deal through Sally Donnelly,
a lobbyist who previously worked for Amazon. In November 2019, when
the contract was awarded to Microsoft instead, Amazon filed a lawsuit
with allegations that the bidding process was biased. On July 6, 2021,
the Pentagon cancelled the JEDI contract with Microsoft, citing that
"due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and
industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs."
Despite Bezos's support for an open borders policy towards immigrants,
Amazon has actively marketed facial recognition software to U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In 2019, a PAC linked to Bezos spent over $1 million (value=1000000)
in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the reelection bid of Seattle
city council member and activist Kshama Sawant. On November 22, 2021,
Jeff Bezos donated $100 million (value=100000000) to the Obama
Foundation to "help expand the scope of programming that reaches
emerging leaders" and requested the Obama Presidential Center's plaza
to be named after John Lewis.
Donald Trump
==============
After the 2016 presidential election, Bezos was invited to join Donald
Trump's Defense Innovation Advisory Board, an advisory council to
improve the technology used by the Defense Department. Trump has
repeatedly criticized Bezos via Twitter, accused Bezos of avoiding
corporate taxes, gaining undue political influence, and undermining
his presidency by spreading fake news. Nevertheless, Bezos
congratulated Trump on his second election victory, posting on X, "Big
congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary
political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger
opportunities. Wishing Donald Trump all success in leading and uniting
the America we all love."
Since 2023, Bezos has been a resident of Indian Creek, Florida. As
reported by 'Axios' in February 2025, Bezos held a private phone
conversation in July 2024 with then-candidate Trump, planting the
seeds of a "Bezos-Trump alliance" months before Bezos blocked the
'Washington Post's' editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris in
the election. After Trump's November victory, Bezos dined with Elon
Musk and Trump at Mar-a-Lago; Amazon subsequently donated $1 million
to Trump's inauguration, at which Bezos was in attendance. Bezos and
Trump were reported to have met for dinner again in February 2025, on
the same night that Bezos announced changes to the 'Washington Post's'
opinion policies to promote "free markets and personal liberties" and
suppress divergent opinions. 'Axios' characterized it as "another sign
of Trump and Bezos' growing closeness".
According to the 'Financial Times', Bezos had a contentious
relationship with Trump during Trump's first term, but worked to have
a positive relationship with Trump in 2024 and during Trump's second
term. Bezos reportedly supported Trump to further his business
interests, and supports many of Trump's policies. The 'Financial
Times' also noted that Bezos had made other changes in his life,
including stepping down as CEO of Amazon in 2021, focusing on Blue
Origin, and being engaged to Lauren Sánchez, which may have changed
his political views.
Saudi hacking claim
=====================
In March 2018, Bezos met in Seattle with Mohammad bin Salman, the
crown prince and 'de facto' ruler of Saudi Arabia, to discuss
investment opportunities for Saudi Vision 2030. In March 2019, Bezos's
security consultant accused the Saudi government of hacking Bezos's
phone. According to BBC, Bezos's top security staffer, Gavin de
Becker, "linked the hack to the 'Washington Post's' coverage of the
murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul". Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and dissident, was employed
as a writer at the 'Washington Post', owned by Bezos. Khashoggi was
killed in late 2018 in Turkey's Saudi consulate for his critical
stance and journalism against the Saudi government and its leader. In
January 2020, 'The Guardian' reported that the hack was initiated
before the murder but after Khashoggi wrote critically about the crown
prince in the 'Washington Post'. Forensic analysis of Bezos's mobile
phone conducted by advisory firm FTI Consulting, concluded it "highly
probable" that the hack was achieved using a malicious file hidden in
a video sent in a WhatsApp message to Bezos from the personal account
of the crown prince on May 1, 2018. Saudi Arabia has denied the claim.
Philanthropy
======================================================================
Bezos donated to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center several
times between 2009 and 2017. In 2013, he pledged $500,000
(value=500,000) to Worldreader, a non-profit founded by a former
Amazon employee. In September 2018, 'Business Insider' reported that
Bezos was the only one of the top five billionaires in the world who
had not signed the Giving Pledge, an initiative created by Bill Gates
and Warren Buffett that encourages wealthy people to give away a
majority of their wealth. That same month, Janet Camarena, director of
transparency initiatives at Foundation Center, was quoted by CNBC as
having questions about Bezos's new Day 1 Fund, including the fund's
structure and how exactly it will be funded.
In May 2017, Bezos gave $1 million (value=1000000) to the Reporters
Committee for Freedom of the Press, which provides pro bono legal
services for American journalists. On June 15, 2017, he posted a
message on Twitter asking for ideas for philanthropy: "I'm thinking
about a philanthropy strategy that is the opposite of how I mostly
spend my time--working on the long term". At the time of the post,
Bezos's lifetime spending on charitable causes was estimated to be
$100 million (value=100000000). Multiple opinion columnists responded
by asking Bezos to pay higher wages to Amazon warehouse workers. A
year later in June, he tweeted that he would announce two
philanthropic foci by the end of summer 2018. Bezos announced in
September 2018 that he would commit approximately $2 billion
(value=2000000000) to a fund to deal with American homelessness and
establish a network of non-profit preschools for low-income
communities. As part of this announcement, he committed to
establishing the "Day 1 Families Fund" to finance "night shelters and
day care centers for homeless families" and the "Day 1 Academies Fund"
for early childhood education.
In January 2018, Bezos made a $33 million donation (value=33000000) to
TheDream.US, a college scholarship fund for undocumented immigrants
brought to the United States as minors. In June 2018, Bezos donated to
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a private philanthropic fund founded by
Bill Gates aimed at promoting emissions-free energy. In September
2018, Bezos donated $10 million (value=10000000) to With Honor, a
nonpartisan organization that works to increase the number of veterans
in political office.
In February 2020, Bezos pledged $10 billion (value=10000000000) to
combat climate change through the Bezos Earth Fund. Later that year,
in November, Bezos announced $791 million (value=791000000) of
donations to established, well-known groups, with $100 million
(value=100000000) each going to Environmental Defense Fund, Natural
Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, World Resources
Institute and World Wildlife Fund, and the remainder going to 11 other
groups. In April 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bezos donated
$100 million (value=100000000) to food banks through Feeding America.
In November 2021, Bezos pledged to donate $2 billion
(value=2000000000) towards restructuring food systems and nature
conservation at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The
Earth Fund supported the Earth Rover Program, which aims to develop
high-yield low-environmental-impact farming by novel seismological
study of soils, with $4m.
In July 2021, Bezos announced the Courage and Civility Award and
donated $100 million (value=100000000) each to lawyer Van Jones and
chef José Andrés. The next year, he donated $100 million
(value=100000000) to singer Dolly Parton in recognition of her charity
work focused on improving children's literacy around the world. In
March 2024, he donated $50 million (value=50000000) each to actress
Eva Longoria and retired admiral Bill McRaven.
Bezos Academy is a group of tuition-free preschools for students from
low-income families, which was created by Bezos, and which operate in
a manner similar to the Montessori method (but are not accredited as
Montessori schools). On November 22, 2022, Bezos awarded $123 million
(value=123000000) to organizations that are engaged in relocating
homeless families to permanent housing. Day 1 Families Fund grants,
the amounts of which vary in monetary terms, will be sent to 40
organizations across the country.
See also
======================================================================
* List of Princeton University alumni
* List of richest Americans in history
Further reading
======================================================================
*
* Davenport, Christian (2018). 'The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff
Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos'. PublicAffairs. .
*
* Fernholz, Tim (2018). 'Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos,
and the New Space Race'. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. .
* Leibovich, Mark. 'The New Imperialists' (Prentice Hall, 2002) pp
55-104.[https://archive.org/details/newimperialists00mark online]
*
*
External links
======================================================================
*
*
*
*
* [https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/ 'Forbes' Profile]
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