Amazon.com has become a household name and a go-to website to fulfill all our needs and desires. It is the largest e-commerce website that was founded by the richest man in the world – Jeff Bezos. The American entrepreneur played a massive role in changing the e-commerce scenario all across the globe. He is both the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc. and has made online buying an easy affair. His company is by far the largest online retailer on the internet generates thousands of sells every minute.
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Jeff Bezos – Early life and career
Jeffrey Preston Bezos known as Jeff Bezos was born in Albuquerque on January 12, 1964. When he was in high school, he developed the Dream Institute – a place that promoted creative thoughts for young students. People close to him always knew that he wasn’t an ordinary boy and today his extraordinary vision has changed the world.
Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with degrees in computer science and electrical engineering. In 1990, the young achiever went through a series of jobs before joining D.E. Shaw & Co., the New York Investment Bank. Jeff soon became the senior vice president and was also the youngest in the firm. His was in charge of examining the possibilities of investment on the internet.
During that time, internet usage was growing by over 2000% every year and that’s what kicked his entrepreneurial aspirations. By 1994, Jeff quit his job and moved to Seattle to open his virtual bookstore. He used to work out of his garage with a few employees. He then started developing the software for his site and named it after the South American river, Amazon. The platform sold its first book in July 1995 and the rest is history!
w did Jeff Bezos become the richest man in the world?
Within the next few years, Amazon became the leading e-commerce site. It was open 24 hours a day and the website was user-friendly. It encouraged browsers to post their reviews of books and offer discounts on customized recommendations and searches for the out-of-print books.
By July 1998, the website started selling CDs and then added videos too. By 1999, Jeff added auctioning options to the site and invested in different virtual stores. Amazon’s success encouraged more and more aspiring online retailers. It started with book chain and now has literally everything you can need.
Many companies fought for internet dollars and Jeff saw the market diversify day by day. In 2005, Amazon added a large array of products like clothes, electronics, hardware, and more. The company diversified further by 2006 as they introduced Amazon Web Services. It was a cloud-computing service that became the biggest internet service in the world.
By the end of 2007, the brand released a new virtual reading device called Kindle. It was the digital book that readers could use with wireless internet service. Customers could purchase, download, and read books on the device instead of buying hard copies from stores.
In 2010, Amazon declared that the sale of Kindle has surpassed hardcopies. It was also the year when the company moved to make its own TV shows like Amazon Studios division.
The yearly net sales of the company upscaled from $510,000 (1995) to about $600 million (1998). In the year 2008, the earning was $19.1 billion and last year it was $233 billion.
ff Bezos – Other interests
Apart from Amazon, Jeff also founded Blue Origin. It is a spaceflight company founded in the year 2000 that bought a launch site in Texas and soon planned to build a suborbital spacecraft called New Shepard and an orbital launch vehicle named New Glenn. The spacecraft was created last year, while the vehicle will be made by 2020.
Bezos also took over The Washington Post and its affiliated publications for $250 million in 2013. The richest man in the world has a net worth of $112 billion as noted in 2018.
Jeff Bezos – Personal Life
Jeff got married to Mackenzie Tuttle in 1993 who was his colleague at D.E. Shaw. The couple separated this year, and there were soon allegations about the man having an affair with another woman.
Jeff launched an investigation to find out who tracked his private messages. In February, he posted a long essay an accused some of the officials of the American Media Inc. of extortion and bribery. To that, they had claimed to reveal private pictures of the Amazon founder if he did not stop his inquiry. Later on, it was revealed that his alleged lover’s sibling had leaked those texts.
Jeff Bezos vs. Bill Gates
Even after being the richest man in the world, Jeff has his personal life in a spot. He had been battling with the headlines that didn’t have anything good to write for a long time. His fame makes people curious like we’d all want to know about any other celebrity. Currently, business tycoons Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are engaged in valuation battles.
Bill Gates was once the richest person in the world but has dropped down by $4 billion – the narrowest margin ever! Bill Gates might again become the richest man in the world because Bezos fortune dropped by $15.7 billion this year. On the other hands, Gates has grown by $14.2 billion.
As per the latest reports from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Jeff Bezos net worth stands as $109 billion, while it is $105 billion for Gates. Amazon’s growth had hit more than $50 billion last year, but things fell down after April 2019. His net worth dropped from $150 to $115 billion due to his divorce settlement.
As a part of the divorce, his wife Mackenzie Bezos will gain 25% of Amazon’s stake and that amounts to $35.6 billion. This makes the largest stakeholder in the e-retail business and also the third richest woman in the world.
In March 2019, Bill Gates still remained the second richest man after he donated more than $35 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He also pledged that half of his earnings will be given to charity.
Jeff Bezos – Lessons for life
Now that we know almost all about Jeff Bezos’ life and success story, here are some of the lessons he has to inspire us with:
1. Be prepared to fail
Bezos never thought he would succeed when he started Amazon.com, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Back then, the online venture was new and vague. The security concerns were huge and he had to risk a lot. There were great chances of failure and he has gone through all the ups and downs. His mindset paid him off and that’s what he tells others to focus on as well.
2. Play the long game
During the early days, Bezos was warned by many investors who said that the company is years away from making profits. However, his vision was clear and that made everything easy. We all have to work our ways out and that majorly involves envisioning the game.
3. Start small and diversify
Amazon started by selling books. It was a humble beginning that led to the biggest online empire. Today you get almost anything on Amazon. The lesson here teaches us to start small and then gradually expand.
Top 10 richest people in the world in 2019
It is now time to find out who are the other nine richest people in the world along with Jeff Bezos going strong at number one:
1. Jeff Bezos
With an approximate current net worth of $153.72 billion, Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. He is the founder of Amazon and part of several companies in the online business. His humble background tells us that nothing is impossible if we have a clear goal and we know how to go about it.
Amazon is the go-to e-commerce brand that fulfills all out online shopping requirement. It is also one of the most booming platforms for sellers, dropshippers, and other online merchants.
2. Bill Gates
With a current net worth of $102.1 billion, the founder of Microsoft is on number two among the top 10 richest people in the world. He was number one for many years before Jeff Bezos dethroned the position.
Founded in 1975 along with Paul Allen, this company has sold the largest PC software all across the globe. In 2018, Gates gained $10 billion of additional net worth and that has made the current amount soar so high.
. Bernard Arnault
With a net worth of $93.9 billion, the CEO of Louis Vitton Moet Hennessey, Bernard Arnault, soars up high. The company was formed after merging two businesses.
We all know that Louis Vitton is a luxury fashion brand. The brand was merged with Moet Hennessey, the famous champagne and cognac manufacturers.
Benard has been working towards his up high from the past year. At the beginning of 2017, he was on number 14th among the richest people in the world. Within one year, he came to the 3rd position and right into the top 10’s list from top 20’s.
4. Warren Buffett
With a net worth of $84.8 billion, Warren Buffett is on the 4th position among the top richest people in the world. He is an American entrepreneur, CEO, and investor of Berkshire Hathaway.
Buffett is supposedly the most successful investor in the world and has millions of dollars in trade. People look up to him due to his success. However, even after being so rich, he stays in the home he had bought when he didn’t own billions of dollars.
. Mark Zuckerberg
Who doesn’t know the founder of massive social media site Facebook? Moreover, who thought a drop out from Harvard University could become the 5th richest ma in the world?
Mark Zuckerberg net worth is a whopping $67.4 billion and it all started from a dorm room is his university. Although he escalated up fast, he dropped down from the 3rd position after his loss due in the Cambridge data scandal and issues related to Facebook stock prices.
6. Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle Corporation and previously the company’s CEO is the 6th richest with a net worth of $64.9 billion. Over a decade, Oracle became an extremely successful tech company and has more than 1,36,000 employees. They are hitting 40 years soon and shows no sign of stopping.
7. Amancio Ortega
The Spanish entrepreneur and founder of Inditex fashion group have a net worth of $64 billion. The fashion brand owns Zara and it is one of the top clothing brands in the world.
Ortega escalated back to the 7th position after one of the other players dropped on the list. However, he also lost more than $11 billion from the net worth in the past few months.
8. Carlos Slim Helu
The Mexican businessman and investor owns Grupo Carso and has a net worth of $60.1 billion. The conglomerate’s portfolio includes several brands, industries, like media, real estate, health care, retail, and more. Carlos Slim lost around $6 billion from his total net worth and came down from the 4th to the 7th position from the previous year.
9. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers
Francoise inherited L’Oreal after the passing of his mother Liliane Bettencourt in 2017. She runs the holding company as the chairwoman and her family owns 33% of L’Oreal. Her current net worth is $54.9 billion. She is the only woman on this list and empowers all other businesswomen in the world.
10. Michael Bloomberg
Finally, Michael Bloomberg, the American entrepreneur and politician is on the 10th position, with a net worth of $53.9 billion. He is CEO and founder of Bloomberg L.P. His company is into media and deals with financial data. The 74-year-old man added around $5 billion more to his net worth within the last six months. That is also how he regained his position on this list.
Final thoughts
The ups and downs in every business show how drastically the names can come up and go down. All these successful entrepreneurs have stories to teach and persistence to maintain their names on this list over the years. Even though some drop and some soar up high, their contribution to the respective fields is unparallel.
Jeff Bezos surpasses everyone and retains his position as the richest man in the world. Let’s see what is store next or how long he is able to maintain this title. Stay tuned to us for more such updates!
