CEO Of Amazon Jeff Bezos Biography & Net Worth 2020 (See Details)

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CEO Of Amazon Jeff Bezos Biography & Net Worth 2020 (See Details)

Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American internet entrepreneur, industrialist, media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, CEO, and president of the multi-national technology company Amazon.

Early Life

Jeff Bezos was born on January 12, 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His mother was a 17 year old high school student when she gave birth to Jeff. His father owned a bike shop. His mother eventually divorced Jeff's birth father. When he was 4 she married a Cuban immigrant named Miguel Bezos. Soon after the wedding, Miguel adopted Jeff and Jeff's last name was legally changed from Jorgenson to Bezos. The family moved to Houston where Mike got a job as an engineer for Exxon. They were also closer to his mother's parents who had a cattle ranch south of San Antonio. His maternal grandmother Mattie Louise Gise was first cousins to country singer George Strait.

While growing up in Texas, Bezos used his parents' garage as a laboratory for his science projects. He would also spend summers working at his grandparent's ranch. Jeff would later claim to have learned his work ethic during his summers at the ranch. He would also later purchase the ranch and expand it from 25,000 to 300,000 acres.

The family moved to Miami, around the time Jeff was entering high school. While in high school, Jeff worked as a short order cook at McDonald's. He was high school valedictorian and a National Merit Scholar. In his valedictorian speech, he mentioned a dream that people of the earth would eventually colonize space.

He attended Princeton University with a plan to study physics, but his love of computers shifted his studies. He eventually graduated summa cum laude with a 4.2 GPA, Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and electrical engineering.

Upon graduating from college, Jeff went to work for a financial technology firm called Fitel. He then transitioned to the banking industry when he landed a product management job at Bankers Trust. In 1990 he was hired as a financial analyst for D. E. Shaw & Co., a hedge fund that had recently been launched with the idea that mathematical modeling could predict big market gains.

Jeff worked at D.E. Shaw until 1994, by which point he had risen to the company's fourth senior vice president. He was 30 years old.

Amazon

A year earlier, Jeff became fascinated with the nascent world wide web. He wanted to sell something online and he landed on selling books. Bezos created Amazon's business plan during a cross country drive from New York to Seattle. He officially founded the company in 1994, setting up the original business in his garage.

Other Accomplishments

In 2008, Bezos received an honorary doctorate in Science and Technology from Carnegie Mellon University, and in 1999 Bezos was named Time magazine's Person of the Year. In 2000, Bezos founded Blue Origin, a human spaceflight startup company, partially as a result of his fascination with space travel. Blue Origin includes an early interest in developing space hotels, amusement parks, colonies and small cities for 2 million or 3 million people orbiting the Earth. The company was kept secret for a few years until it became publicly known in 2006 after purchasing a sizable aggregation of land in west Texas for a launch and test facility. In 2013, Bezos was discussing commercial spaceflight opportunities and strategies with Richard Branson, multibillionaire founder of Virgin Group – during that year he also purchased The Washington Post.

Real Estate And Assets

On February 12, 2020, it was revealed that Jeff had paid $255 million for two properties in Beverly Hills. The first property, known as the Jack L. Warner estate, cost $165 million. The estate covers 10 lush acres in the heart of Beverly Hills and features a 13,600 square-foot main house. The seller was entertainment mogul David Geffen who bought the property in 1990 for $47.5 million. The second property Bezos bought in February 2020 was a 120-acre vacant hilltop called Enchanted Hill. The seller was the estate of late Microsoft founder Paul Allen, who purchased the land in 1997 for $20 million. Though mostly overrun with weeds, the property does have a 1.5 mile driveway and manicured bluff at its peak.

Other real estate assets:

• $12.9 million mansion in Beverly Hills, acquired in July 2018

• $24.5 million mansion right next door to the above Beverly Hills home, acquired in 2007

• $23 million mansion in Washington D.C., acquired in 2018. A former museum comprised of two buildings that measure 27,000 square feet of living space

• 300,000 acres in Texas including multiple ranches

• 100,000 additional acres in various parts of the country

• Three units in 25 Central Park West in Manhattan

• $10 million 5-acre property in Medina, Washington, acquired in 1999

• $50 million mansion next door to his property in Medina, acquired in 2005

Net Worth Milestones

June 1998 – $1 billion for the first time

June 1999 – $10 billion

July 2015 – $50 billion

January 2018 – $100 billion

July 2018 – $150 billion

September 2018 – $170 billion

January 2019 – Jeff announces he is divorcing his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie. Clearly the outcome of this divorce will have an enormous impact on Jeff's $150 billion net worth.

April 4, 2019 – Jeff and MacKenzie announced that they had reached an amicable resolution of their divorce where she will be given $36 billion worth of Amazon stock. Jeff will retain 75% of his former stake and will have voting control over MacKenzie's shares. She will not have any ownership in The Washington Post or Jeff's space company Blue Origin. It's unclear how the couple decided to split their various homes and jets. Jeff's net worth immediately following the announcement became $114 billion.

March 9, 2020 – $111 billion

July 1, 2020 – $172 billion

July 9, 2020 – $190 billion

August 26, 2020 – $202 billion

If you're keeping track, it took Jeff just three years to become a billionaire after launching in 1995. It took him 20 years to make $50 billion, but then only 2.5 years to make his second $50 billion, for a total of $100 billion. And then it only took 7 months to make his third $50 billion, for a total of $150 billion. And then he lost $36 billion in an instant with the stroke of a pen.

Summary

Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $198 billion. As of this writing, that makes him the richest person in the world. He is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. Between 1998 and 2020, his net worth has grown from $1 billion to an all-time peak of $170 billion September 2018. He lost $36 billion worth of his fortune as a result of his divorce from MacKenzie Bezos, who instantly became one of the 25 richest people in the world.