Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos (/beɪzəs/, born January 12, 1964) is the founder, president, chief executive officer (CEO), and chairman of the board of Amazon.com.
Early life and background
Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen and Ted Jorgensen.[2] His maternal ancestors were settlers who lived in Texas, and over the generations acquired a 25,000 acre (101 km2 or 39 miles2) ranch in Cotulla. Bezos' maternal grandfather was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque. He retired early to the ranch, where Bezos spent many summers as a youth, working with him.[3] At an early age, Bezos displayed a striking mechanical aptitude – as a toddler, he tried dismantling his crib with a screwdriver.[4]
Bezos was born to a teenage mother in Albuquerque. Her marriage to his father lasted little more than a year. When Jeff was five, she remarried, this time to Miguel Bezos. Miguel was born in Cuba, immigrated to the United States alone when he was fifteen years old, worked his way through the University of Albuquerque, married, and legally adopted Jeff. After the marriage, the family moved to Houston, Texas, and Miguel became an engineer for Exxon. The young Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade.
Bezos often showed intense scientific interests. He rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room. He converted his parents' garage into a laboratory for science projects. The family moved to Miami, Florida, where Bezos attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School. While in high school, he attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of Florida, receiving a Silver Knight Award in 1982.[5] He attended Princeton University, planning to study physics, but soon returned to his love of computers and graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science.
Career
After graduating from Princeton University in 1986, Bezos worked on Wall Street in the computer science field.[6] Then he worked on building a network for international trade for a company known as Fitel. He next worked at Bankers Trust, where he became vice-president. Later on he also worked in computer science for D. E. Shaw & Co.
Amazon.com
Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994 after making a cross-country drive from New York to Seattle, writing up the Amazon business plan on the way. He initially set up the company in his garage.[7] Amazon eventually made him one of the most prominent dot-com entrepreneurs and a billionaire.
Bezos' salary as CEO was $81,840 in 2010, in addition to the $1.6 million cost of his personal security detail.[8] He owns 20% of Amazon's stock and forgoes stock options.
According to Forbes, Amazon's shares have "defied gravity" in 2011, jumping 55% and adding $6.5 billion to his net worth.[9]
Bezos is known for his attention to business details. As described by Portfolio.com, he "is at once a happy-go-lucky mogul and a notorious micromanager. ... an executive who wants to know about everything from contract minutiae to how he is quoted in all Amazon press releases."[7]
Blue Origin
In 2000, Bezos founded a human spaceflight startup company Blue Origin.[10] The company was kept under wraps for a half dozen years and initially became publicly known only in 2006 when purchasing a sizeable aggregation of land in west Texas for a launch and test facility.[11] In a 2011 interview, he indicated that he founded the space company to help enable "anybody to go into space" and stated that the company is committed to decreasing the cost and increasing the safety of spaceflight.[12]
Recognition
He was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 1999.[13] In 2008, he was selected by U.S. News & World Report as one of America's best leaders.[14] Bezos was awarded an honorary doctorate in Science and Technology from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.
He is also a member of the Bilderberg Group and attended the Swiss 2011 Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland.[15]
References
- ^ "Jeff Bezos". Forbes magazine. http://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/. Retrieved 2010-10-31. "Jeff Bezos; $19.1 B; Calculated July 2011"
- ^ Robinson, Tom (2009). Jeff Bezos: Amazon.com Architect. ABDO. p. 14. ISBN 9781604537598. http://books.google.ca/books?id=tONgujxtvPwC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=%22jeffrey+Preston+Jorgensen+%22#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ Biography and Video Interview of Jeff Bezos at Academy of Achievement.
- ^ Hof, Robert D. (December 14, 1998). "The torrent of energy behind Amazon". Businessweek. http://www.businessweek.com/1998/50/b3608008.htm.
- ^ "Miami-Dade Winners". Silver Knight Awards. Archived from the original on November 21, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20081121073505/http://www.silverknightawards.com/dade_winners.html.
- ^ "Tau Beta Pi Leaders and Innovators". The Tau Beta Pi Association. http://www.tbp.org/pages/About/People/DistinguishedMembers/Business.cfm.
- ^ a b "Top Executive Profiles - Jeffrey P. Bezos". Portfolio.com. Archived from the original on February 4, 2009. http://web.archive.org/web/20090204204126/http://www.portfolio.com/resources/executive-profiles/Jeffrey-P-Bezos-1984.
- ^ Yarow, Jay (April 29, 2011). "Amazon Paid $1.6 Million Last Year To Keep Jeff Bezos Safe (AMZN)". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/04/29/businessinsider-amazon-paying-16-million-annually-for-jeff-bezos-security-2011-4.DTL.
- ^ O'Connor, Clare (September 29, 2011). "Jeff Bezos: Amazon's Rocket Man Keeps Getting Richer". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2011/09/22/jeff-bezos-amazons-rocket-man-keeps-getting-richer/.
- ^ Boyle, Alan (2006-11-11). "Blue Origin Revealed". cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/01/03/26062.aspx. Retrieved 2011-12-09.
- ^ "Buzz in West Texas is about Jeff Bezos space craft launch site". The Wall Street Journal. 2006-11-10. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116312683235519444.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. Retrieved 2008-05-28.
- ^ Levy, Stephen (2011-11-13). "Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than You Think". Wired. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_bezos/all/1. Retrieved 2011-12-09.
- ^ Cooper Ramo, Joshua (December 27, 1999). "Jeffrey Preston Bezos: 1999 Person of the year". Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,992927,00.html.
- ^ LaGesse, David (November 19, 2008). "America's Best Leaders: Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com CEO". U.S. News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/best-leaders/2008/11/19/americas-best-leaders-jeff-bezos-amazoncom-ceo.html. Retrieved 2008-11-25.
- ^ "Bilderberg 2011 list of participants". BilderbergMeetings.org. http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/participants_2011.html. Retrieved August 24, 2011.
External links
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- Annual revenue
 US$24.5 billion (2009)
- Employees 31,200 (2010)
- Stock symbol NASDAQ: AMZN
- Website Amazon.com
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