Jeff Bezos
Chairman and CEO of Amazon.com, the online merchant of everything which has played a significant role in the upliftment of eCommerce too. Listed since the 3rd richest person in the world (August 2016). Under his guidance, Amazon.com has also climbed to a market cap of $292.6 Billion and has been the world’s biggest online retailer and a version for Internet revenue.
Apart from Amazon, Jeff is also the proud owner of the Privately-funded aerospace developer and manufacturer”Blue Origin” and had also purchased”The Washington Post” paper as well.
“Blue Origin” is an individual spaceflight start-up business that Was set up in 2000! This resulted from his passion for space travel. Their idea was to commercialize distance travel. The business was kept secret for a few years and just came to be known openly in 2006 as it purchased a large piece of property in west Texas for the launch and test facility.
In 2013, Jeff also spoke commercial spaceflight Opportunities and strategies using multibillionaire founder of Virgin Group and Chairman of Virgin Galactic — Richard Branson.
However, in November 2015, Blue Origin’s New Shepard space vehicle successfully flew to space and reached its planned evaluation elevation before executing a historical vertical landing at the start site in West Texas.
Going ahead — Blue Origin within a comprehensive flight test Program of New Shepard expects to begin carrying”test passengers” in 2017 and commence commercial flights in 2018. Currently, they’re building six vehicles that will support all stages of testing and operations,
In October 2013, Jeff had purchased The Washington Post This also led to the exit of the longtime owners the Graham family who owned the paper for about 140 years straight.
The paper and lifted the internet payment barrier for subscribers of a number of US local newspapers. Additionally, he’s also made several additional Enterprise Investments through his private investment company –“Bezos Expeditions”.
Airbnb (sharing economy), Stack Exchange (tech Publishing), Twitter (social networking), Uber (sharing market ), Business Insider (publishing), Crowdrise (for-profit charitable giving platform), General Fusion (sustainable energy nuclear fusion), Aviary (software photo editing), D-Wave Systems (quantum computing), Glassybaby (supports cancer patients), Juno Therapeutics (cancer biopharmaceuticals), Lookout (technology cellular safety ), MakerBot Industries (3D printers), MFG.com (manufacturer direct market ), Nextdoor (localized social media ), Rethink Robotics (manufacturing robots), and many more…
In 1998, Jeff additionally invested in Google.com and became an early investor. He invested $250,000 in from about 3.3 million shares. These stocks today are worth roughly about $2.2 billion today.
Aside from that, being a renowned philanthropist, Jeff has Also made several charitable contributions as well.
Talking about his achievements, Jeff has a record accolade Attached to his name, some of these include: –
Named as Time magazine’s Person of the Year (1999)
Selected as one of America’s Greatest Leaders by U.S. News & World Report (2008)
Named as Businessperson of the Year by Fortune (2012)
Awarded with all the Heinlein Prize for Advances in Space
Jeff Bezos’s personality and personal lifestyle
Jeff Bezos is known to be extremely secretive! His biographer had to literally dig within a trash can to discover that a firm known as — Blue Origin existed. All, most men and women understand is, he is married to MacKenzie and has four children! Other than that very little is known about what he does outside of Amazon and conducting his venture capital company.
At the time of his birth) and Ted Jorgense. This marriage only lasted a bit more than a year, post which she remarried to Miguel Bezos (a Cuban who immigrated to the United States alone when he was fifteen years old) in April 1968. Jeff was four at that time.
Jeff completed his early schooling from River Oaks Elementary School in Houston and Miami Palmetto Senior High School. Afterward, he then proceeded to complete his graduation with two Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University.
After finishing his graduation in 1986, Jeff turned down Project offers from Intel and Bell Labs to combine a start-up called Fitel. After quitting Fitel, he proceeded to join Bankers Trust and then also worked on Internet-enabled business opportunities at D. E. Shaw & Co, as well.
By 1994, Jeff was already the youngest-ever senior vice President in the Wall Street investment banker — D.E. Shaw & Co. He had been only 30-year-old and was drawing a six-figure salary.
He was, what many would call successful! But Jeff had other plans.
In efforts to pursue his own secret fancy to your electronic Retailing, Jeff chose to depart his inaugural job, that too, before a top bonus, and start his own business on the web.
Journey of Amazon
Jeff had founded Amazon.com in 1994. He first got the idea to Begin an Internet enterprise in 1994. He had been browsing the Internet in search of new ventures for D.E. Shaw & Co. to invest in. That is when he stumbled upon a statistic stating that World Wide Web use was rising by 2,300% a month.
The idea
This happened with a then-new US Supreme Court ruling Holding that mail-order catalogs weren’t required to collect sales taxes in countries where they lack physical existence.
Bezos immediately recognized the expansive possibilities of Selling online and started exploring the possibilities of developing an Internet company around it.
Possible to market through the Internet. After reviewing the record, novels have proven to become the obvious choice! Primarily because of the number of names that existed. Jeff noticed that even the largest superstores could stock just a mere fraction of what the available books and also a”virtual” bookstore may offer millions of titles.
And it was determined! Jeff passed a fat bonus, packaged his Spouse, and their dog and headed for a cross-country drive from New York to Seattle. MacKenzie drove throughout the trip, while Jeff jotted down the business plan and started calling prospective investors.
And just like this — Amazon.com was shaped!
The First years
The Business was started with a first seed investment of $1 Million from family members and friends, from the garage of a home that they rented!
He chose Seattle as the ideal city for his new venture Since not only was it home to a huge pool of high tech talent but it was also in close proximity to Ingram Book Group’s Oregon warehouse.
Five workers worked on learning how to source books and setting up a computer system that could make Amazon.com easy to navigate.
And finally in July 1995, with a choice of more than 1 Million names, Amazon.com opened its virtual doors and called itself”Earth’s Biggest Book Store”.
With the only word of mouth and emails, Amazon became an instantaneous success. The orders had begun to pour in.
In another three years, Amazon.com grew on to become from a Company with 100 employees that drew sales of over $15.7 million, to a company, to a company of over 3,000 employees and over $610 million in sales, in only 3 decades.
The growing years…!
What was interesting to notice was that, Though their Earnings were rising at a rate of 3000% yearly and by now, they had become nation’s third-largest bookseller: but they were yet to make money. In reality, the company lost about $30 million in 1997, followed by yet another $1.25 million in 1998.
However, Jeff belonged to a very different mindset, and All these Things didn’t influence him. He wanted to make Amazon the most customer-centric business in the world.
Keeping that in mind running behind adulthood or Becoming profitable at there could have been a bad choice, based on Jeff! This was being done in favor of establishing brand new recognition, and to achieve that, the majority of Amazon’s revenues were being poured into marketing and promotion.
Soon, Amazon was seen to be enlarging itself into other Markets including music, gifts and pharmacy sections. To cash in on the growing popularity of internet auctions like eBay and uBID, Amazon also joined Sotheby’s Holdings Inc in June 1999 to establish the internet auction site sothebys.amazon.com, too.
This strategy of this firm worked nicely in their favor! Although this irked a few shareholders, the strategy helped the company survive the dot-com bubble burst. And albeit the bubble burst prices them 1500 of their workers; unlike their opponents who got wiped off, Amazon managed to remain afloat.
In fact, the company declared its first-ever gain of $5 Million on earnings of over $1 billion, or a single penny per share, in the 4th quarter of 2001.
The re-valuation of Amazon also directed Jeff to look for ways to Diversify Amazon’s business model, which finally contributed to Amazon Marketplace, which let Amazon customers sell their favorite books and other products alongside Amazon’s personal offerings. Until date, Amazon’s used-items market remains undefeated and remains the largest in the world.
By 2004, approximately 60 percent (and climbing ) of US households had Internet accessibility and Amazon was the #1 sensation online. From books and CDs to clothing, electronic equipment, to almost everything, Amazon was uniquely positioned to benefit from the growing number of Americans who were searching online.
Ten years ago, when Amazon had just begun, the New York Times Doubted that 20 million people used the Web on a regular basis and their business model held any potential. But there is no doubt that any such doubts occur in its own head.
Amazon further went on to include the Amazon Prime program and free In 2007, they also introduced Amazon Kindle — a lightweight device for reading electronic books. This move largely became responsible for the creation of the eBook market in the U.S. and abroad.
Afterward, Amazon also entered the pill marketplace with the Kindle Fire, their low-cost alternative to the iPad, as well
By 2014, the company had further increased its earnings to $88.8 billion, which has now further grown on to RevenuRevenue Increasebillion in 2016. Now hold a market cap of $292 Billion as well.
Jeff becomes the third richest person on the planet…!
But how did this happen?
Well, Jeff owns close to 18% of Amazon. Now, with the Drastic increase in business, their stock price also had climbed by 50% since February. To add to that — following Amazon reported better-than-expected outcomes of about $850 million in profit for its second quarter as well as their share price rose further in after-hours trading as well.
On the other end, Warren Buffett who also owns near 18 percent This affected their stock cost significantly.
Furthermore — there’s been a Wells Fargo bank’s imitation Accounts scandal, that has led the bank to become fined wifinecombined $190 million from the California and federal regulators as it was alleged of opening countless bogus accounts to meet their aggressive internal sales goals.
This further led to a 3% drop in business shares and Warren Buffett, who owns 2 million shares of Wells Fargo, dropped $1.3 Billion. To worsen matters more — Berkshire Hathaway also owned 10 percent of the lender.
