Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos is an American entrepreneur who has played a vital role in the expansion of e-commerce. He is the founder of Amazon.com, the world’s largest internet retailer. Aged only 49, Bezos is a billionaire with a net worth of 23.2 billion dollars.

Bezos was born on 12th January 1964 in New Mexico. At the time of his birth his mother was only a teenager and her marriage with his father lasted for only a year. She got married to Miguel Bezos when Jeff was five years old. The family migrated to the U.S when Jeff was fifteen. Jeff Bezos was a highly intelligent student with a striking aptitude for science. He graduated from Princeton University Summa Cum Laude with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. After graduating, Bezos worked at Wall Street in the computer science department. After that he built a network for international trade for Fitel. His next job was at Bankers Trust where he assumed the position of vice president. He also worked for D. E Shaw and Co in the computer science field.

Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994. Bezos had left his well-paying job for this internet venture. He wanted to take advantage of the internet boom and began his work from his garage. He joked that he wanted to have a garage start-up story like Silicon Valley legends from Hewlett-Packard. The business grew unimaginably fast. In 1997, Amazon.com went public and skeptics began wondering whether an internet bookseller can remain in business with giants like Barnes and Noble entering the internet retail market. In just two years, Amazon’s shares were more than twice of its biggest competitors. Most of the investors were members of Bezos’s family including his parents who had invested almost all of their life savings on this venture. A decade later those who had invested in it were billionaires. Bezos’s strategy was to increase Amazon’s shares as quickly as possible so Amazon could become the ‘World’s biggest anything store’.

Bezos is truly responsible for making Amazon what it is today. He treaded cleverly through difficult times and came out successful. He made so many innovations such as the ‘Kindle’ and ‘AWS’. In 2006 Amazon was the top retailer in America with sales of more than 10.7 billion dollars. Amazon now has a host of subsidiaries such as Amazon Local and Living Social. Bezos launched the Amazon Studios in 2012 with plans of presenting its TV shows and feature films online. Amazon’s share prices have gone up a tenfold in less than six years and the entire credit goes to Jeff Bezos. He was named ‘Business Person of the Year’ in 2012 by Fortune magazine. The CEO and President of Amazon.com was named ‘Person of the Year’ in 1999 by Time magazine and in 2008 was selected as one of America’s best leaders. In 2008, he also received an honorary doctorate by Carnegie Mellon University. He was ranked the ‘Second Best CEO of the world’ by Harvard Business Review’. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index lists Jeff Bezos as one of the richest people of the world.