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On January 13, the richest man in the world, founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos turns 55. And although now his surname is associated only with a scandalous divorce, his success story cannot but admire.

Jeffrey Preston Bezos was born on January 12, 1964 in the American town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The boy's maternal relatives were among the first settlers of the state of Texas. When Jeff was only 4 years old when his mom married Cuban immigrant Miguel Bezos, who adopted the boy.

Bezos showed an early interest in technology. After school, he wandered around the house with a screwdriver, looking for work for the inquisitive mind and dexterous hands. In his room, he disassembled and collected everything he could reach.

At that time, his parents simultaneously worked in a bank and studied at the university, and from the age of 5 they told the guy "you are already big, you are our support, all hope is on you." And Jeff began to think seriously about his future. He locked himself in a room and invented various fantastic things: a solar panel made of foil and an umbrella, a doorbell from an old alarm clock, and other little things. Later, his father gave him a garage for experiments (it seems that all Americans prefer to invent various devices in sheds that smelled through and through of gasoline and rusty metal).

Jeff Bezos as a child and older

Every summer Jeff rode to the ranch and, along with his grandfather, brought to life some of his antics. They have improved the wind turbine, mini-harvester, tracked tractor.

A few months after completing his studies at school, Bezos entered Princeton University without much hassle, at the Department of Electronic Measuring Instruments and Informatics of the Faculty of Physics, which he safely graduated in 1986 with a "red" diploma and a distinction from the academic society Phi Beta Kappa.

Jeff Bezos's stay at the university was overshadowed by a rather unexpected discovery, it turned out that there are a lot of guys in the world who understand the laws of physics much better than him. Therefore, Jeff decided to focus his main attention on computer support issues. In this area, there was a slightly less density of geniuses and an increased demand for specialists of a decent level was expected.

Jeff Bezos' career and fortune

By early 1994, Bezos was working in his specialty on Wall Street in various positions. He was involved in the development of a network for international trade, and later became vice president of D. E. Shaw & Co, which he left in the summer of 1994.

In late 1994, while traveling across the country from New York to Seattle, Bezos founded the online store Amazon.com, which had an initial investment of $ 300,000. The site was launched on July 16, 1995, although at that time it was not fully completed: for example, it was possible to order a negative number of books on the site, and Bezos himself motivated this by the need to get ahead of competitors.

The company began as an online bookstore and has expanded to sell a wide range of products and services, including video and audio streaming. On this moment it is the world's largest e-commerce company and the world's largest cloud provider through Amazon Web Services. In 1997, Amazon.com went public. And already in 1999, the American Time magazine named Bezos the person of the year.

Jeff Bezos founded an aerospace companyBlue origin

Jeff Bezos expanded his business interests in 2000 by founding the aerospace company Blue Origin. Blue Origin began test flights into space in 2015 and plans to begin commercial suborbital flights with humans in late 2018.

In 2013, Bezos bought the American publishing house The Washington Post for $ 250 million. In addition, he manages other business investments through his venture capital fund, Bezos Expeditions.

On November 24, 2017, Bezos became the richest person on planet Earth with a fortune of $ 100.3 billion. On January 10, 2018, his fortune was $ 106 billion. In this ranking, the Amazon founder managed to bypass Bill Gates with a fortune of $ 93.3 billion and Warren Buffett - $ 87.3 billion, which for many years occupied the first and second lines, respectively. By June 2018, Bezos's fortune had grown to $ 139 billion 600 million and he is ranked number one in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and # 5 in Forbes' 2018 list of the most influential people in the world.

On July 16, 2018, Jeff Bezos topped the list of the richest people in the world according to Bloomberg, according to his data, the businessman's fortune was $ 150 billion.

Jeff Bezos' Success Secrets

1. Choose your husband or wife carefully

Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos have been married for 24 years. Before meeting Mackenzie, Jeff tried to establish his personal life more than once. Even on the recommendation of friends, I went on a blind date. However, it was unsuccessful. Only later did it become clear that he was looking for certain traits in women - the ability to be a muse and inventiveness.

I needed a woman who could pull me out of the category of second-rate people, give me an idea, help in its implementation. With Mackenzie, just a couple of phrases were enough for me to understand that she is inventive, and this is exactly what I was looking for. No options.

Jeff Bezos and his wife Mackenzie

2. Give up multitasking

"I try to take turns taking turns. If I dine with friends or family, I dine. If I read e-mail, I read. And I do not want to be distracted by anything else. I like maximum concentration on what I am doing."

3. Give preference to risk and adventure over comfortable inaction.

Each of us has two plots along which our life story can develop. The first is that life is safe and comfortable. The second is risky, full of experiments, ups and downs. Bezos unambiguously chooses the second option.

Describing the path that eventually led Bezos to found Amazon, the businessman says:

I knew that when I turned 80, I would not regret taking the risk. Only after seeing what the Internet is, I realized: this is exactly what can turn my life around. You just need to get involved. Even if I were defeated, I would despise myself less than if I didn't try. In business, the question is often asked: "Why?" This is a good question. But much more valuable: "Why not?"

4. Always have alternatives

When asked who he would be if the Amazon venture had failed, Bezos gives two answers at once.

Jeff Bezos is a man who, from childhood, did only what he wanted, but at the same time he managed to become one of the richest people in the United States. Bezos dreamed of being a design engineer or a great scientist. Jeff's friends predicted that he would become a computer programming genius, but as a result, he became the first online store owner in the history of mankind. Photo: Steve Jurvetson

Childhood and adolescence of Bezos

Jeff Bezos was born on January 12, 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the United States of America. All that is known about his real father is that after the wedding he almost immediately disappeared and never once tried to meet his son. Jeff Jackie's mother 4 years later married Cuban immigrant Miguel Bezos, who managed to build a successful career in the banking sector. This man Jeff always considered his real father.

Jackie and Miguel never punished their son for his wayward behavior. On the contrary, they saw in this the will for freedom, love for independence and knowledge. Moreover, Jeff grew up a gifted child. He could sit for hours in his father's garage, take apart various small parts and build engineering products. So, once, he built a solar foil microwave oven, on which hot sandwiches could be prepared in hot weather.

Interesting fact. Jeff's parents were very embarrassed by the fact that their son does not swear, does not seek to try alcoholic drinks and cigarettes. The boy was completely immersed in the study of physics.

Jeff received his education at Princeton University, but it was not at all connected with his beloved physics. At the time of entering this faculty, there was no longer a place, and Jeff entered the computer support department. This fact upset him very much at first, but despite his dislike of programming, he became a real ace in this area.

After graduation, he was immediately hired by Fitel. One day he received a letter that changed the whole life of a young programmer. In it, the president of the computer company D.E.Show, professor of computer technology at the famous Columbia University, David Shaw, invited Jeff to work. At first, Bezos reacted dubiously to this proposal, saying that computers were not at all what he would like to associate his life with.

Shaw reacted calmly to this impudent behavior of the youngster and suggested that he think it over well. As a result, Jeff began to work for him, but not in the usual way. He could come to the office only when he was in the mood, being inspired to create a unique computer program.

Start of entrepreneurial activity

Even though David Shaw's job was the perfect place for the wayward Bezos, he never stopped thinking about the idea. own business... One day in 1994, while celebrating the birthday of his wife Mackenzie, he announced that the World Wide Web will soon change the whole world, people will understand how many advantages the Internet has. Jeff decided to give people the opportunity to shop online. This was the main idea behind Bezos.

Interesting fact. The idea for building a family business was helped by Bezos's wife. It was she who suggested that he sell through online books. This is not surprising, because Mackenzie was writing one of her next women's novels at the time.

After the decision running his own business Jeff quit Shaw's company and started looking for money to implement the project he had conceived. He needed to get 300 thousand dollars to translate his idea into reality. At first, he talked with various private investors who refused to take part in the Bezos project because they considered his idea to be stupid and unpromising.

Interesting fact. Bezos has always been honest with investors. He did not promise them mountains of gold, but immediately warned that the risks of losing money are 70%.

Bezos managed to find money from his parents. They gave him the required amount without even asking about the essence of the project. It's just that the parents never doubted for a day that the idea of ​​their son would one day make him a millionaire. And so it happened 5 years later. He has developed an online store called amazon.com. Today, nearly 13 million people worldwide shop through this service. Even Bill Clinton bought New Year and Christmas gifts for his family through Amazon.com.

How Amazon.com was launched

Having received the necessary amount from his parents, he immediately began to implement the idea. At first he rented an office of 100 m2 in an industrial area, where only one pawnshop worked. This office also owned a basement of 40 m 2. Bezos decided not to spend money on buying furniture. He built tables out of doors and sawn boards. All this took him only $ 140. He also assigned a separate room for the warehouse. Here he also placed servers and computers. In the basement, Jeff made a storage room for books that were ready to be shipped to customers.

Immediately, Jeff and his team developed a special discount system for selling books through their store so that people can really see the benefits of shopping on Amazon.com. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the first days after the launch of the online store (this happened in 1995), Jeff had already received orders, which increased in quantity every day.

Interesting fact. The site hasn't been perfect from day one. This was done on purpose by Jeff. His main goal was to immediately enter the market and overtake competitors, and then refine all the mistakes and shortcomings of the online store.

While the store was developing, Bezos and his team saved on everything. For every person who worked with Jeff, money didn't really matter. The main thing was to implement a high-quality idea, to create a unique product that would be in everything better suggestions competitors in the market.

Forbes rankings

For the first time, Bezos began to participate in Forbes ranking in 1997. Then he entered the list of TOP 400 richest Americans. His savings amounted to $ 1.6 billion. Two years later, Time magazine named Jeff Bezos the person of the year. In 2007, Bezos has already entered the top ten billionaires. His capital was $ 4.4 billion. In 2016, Bezos began to occupy the second position in the Forbes ranking, his fortune was $ 67 billion. In 2017, he became the third in the list of the richest people on the planet.

What else is Bezos doing?

In addition to the fact that Jeff is the owner of the largest online store, he has other projects that he leads:

• In 2000, Bezos founded the aerospace company Blue Origin. This is probably due to childhood hobby - physics. This company is developing reusable rockets so that they can carry passengers in the future.
• In 2013, Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post publishing house in the United States for $ 250 million.
• In 2016, the programming genius starred in the film "Star Trek: Infinity". He played the role of an alien in this picture.
• In 2017, Jeff attended the MARS conference on robotics, machine learning and space exploration. He personally tested the 4-meter Method-2 robot.

A family

Jeff Bezos has a happy marriage. He and his wife, writer Mackenzie Bezos, have four children. They all live in a wealthy mansion in the Seattle suburb of Medina.

Charity

Jeff Bezos devotes a huge amount of funds to the development of science and art. This is confirmed by the financing of launches of private spacecraft, cooperation with NASA. In addition, Bezos manifests himself as a person with an active civil position. He and his wife in 2012 allocated two and a half million dollars so that Washington could hold a referendum on the approval or rejection of a bill related to the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Useful videos

The Amazing Amazon Story - Jeff Bezos. Full Speech.

The history of the Amazon company.

Jeffrey Preston Bezos (Jeff Bezos) was born on January 12, 1964 in Albuquerque (New Mexico, USA).

Education

Graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science.

Labor activity

He started his career on Wall Street in his specialty, developing networks for international trade.

Then he took the post of vice president at D. E. Shaw & Co, which he left in the summer of 1994.

In late 1994, traveling from New York to Seattle, he founded Amazon.com with an investment of $ 300,000. Amazon's website was launched on July 16, 1995, and it itself was an online bookstore. The company grew and already in 1997 Amazon.com went public. Over time, it has expanded to become the largest in the world in the field of Internet commerce, and its range now includes a huge number of products and services, including video and audio broadcasting. Today it is also the world's largest cloud service provider through Amazon Web Services.

In 2000, already a successful businessman, he founded the aerospace company Blue Origin. In 2015, it began test flights into space, and by the end of 2018, Blue Origin had plans for commercial suborbital flights with humans.

In 2013, the billionaire made a $ 250 million purchase - he acquired the American publishing house The Washington Post.

He manages his other business investments through the venture capital fund Bezos Expeditions.

In 1999 he was named the person of the year by the American Time magazine. In the ranking of the most influential people in the world in 2018, according to Forbes, he is in fifth place.

Personal fortune

On November 24, 2017, he became the richest person in the world with a fortune of $ 100.3 billion. In 2018, he became the richest man according to Forbes, taking first place with a fortune of $ 150 billion.

Interesting Facts

He starred in one of the scenes of the film "Star Trek: Infinity" as an alien.

Family status

Since 1993, he was officially married to Mackenzie. Over the years of marriage (25 years), the couple had three sons and an adopted daughter from China.

On January 9, 2019, the billionaire announced that he was getting divorced. According to the media, the couple did not enter into a marriage contract, so the entire fortune of the richest inhabitant of the planet will be divided in half. In addition, the couple owns 400 acres of land, making the Bezos the second largest landowners in the United States. It is not yet known how the value of the land will be estimated.

Books about the businessman

20 minutes. reading

Updated: 24/06/2019

Jeff Bezos (full name Jeffrey Preston Bezos, English Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos, 01/12/1964) - American businessman, creator and general manager the world's largest e-commerce company Amazon.com; founder of the world's first privately-owned aerospace company, Blue Origin.

Today, Mr. Bezos is # 1 on the list of billionaires.

He has held this title since November 2017, when $ 100.3 billion was counted in his pocket. The businessman became the first person in the world to reach the $ 100 billion mark and the first to cross the next $ 150 billion milestone.

In July 2018, Bloomberg estimated his fortune at $ 150 billion, at the time of writing, Forbes indicates a figure of $ 145.8 billion. , which ranks second in the richest person index, is approximately $ 50 billion behind the leader.

The owner of "Amazon" not only leads the rating of The World Billionaires 2018, but also knows how to competently manage capital. Earned laudatory epithets ("the greatest businessman of the era", "brilliant Internet tycoon", "genius entrepreneur"), Bezos is ranked 5th on the Forbes list of "Most Influential People on the Planet". He discusses with NASA the colonization of the moon and prepares to transport space tourists! According to him, the first flight of tourists to Space will take place in 2019.

Jeff Bezos's biography reveals his courage and entrepreneurial vision. Having a prestigious job, he decided to try himself in an unknown field, take a chance, put everything on the line. How not to be afraid to step out of your comfort zone? The success story of Jeff Bezos is, first of all, a story of overcoming one's own fears and disbelief of others.

Jeff Bezos Parents: "Pregnant at 16"

Jeffrey Preston (Jeffrey Preston) - so named the baby, who became famous under the laconic "Jeff" - was born on January 12, 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. The boy was registered under the name of his father - Jorgensen, later, after adoption, he was given the name of his stepfather Bezos.

Jeff's parents were very young: his mother, Jacqueline Guise (for Jackie's loved ones), became pregnant at 16, her lover Ted Jorgensen turned 18 at that time. The young people met during their studies and began dating in high school.

Ted performed at the circus and toured as part of the group "Cowboys on unicycle". Artists on "unicycle" danced and jumped rope, and Ted was one of the best masters of his craft in the city. Once the local press even printed a portrait of a 16-year-old circus performer.

So that the teenagers could get married, the girl's parents bought them tickets for a flight to Mexico. There the wedding took place, permission for which, due to the minority of the bride, was signed by the mothers on both sides.

The young husband earned little, he drank with colleagues, he abused alcohol. Jackie's father paid for his unlucky son-in-law to study at the university, unsuccessfully tried to find a job in the police. Ted did not seize the opportunity and, as a result, 17-year-old Jackie with the baby in her arms returned to her father's house. The court ordered Ted to pay $ 40 in child support.

Ted Jorgensen is married for the second time, has sons, and admits his guilt in the collapse of his first marriage. When in 2013 he wrote to his son e-mail, he replied only six months later ... According to Bezos, he remembers the presence of Ted only when filling out medical questionnaires, where it is required to enter his father.

Jackie remarries Cuban Miguel Bezos. Miguel Angelo Bezos Perez (aka Mike) flew from Cuba to Miami in 1962, fleeing the Castro dictatorship. The guy did not show loyalty to the regime that was established after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and his mother, fearing for the future, put her son on a plane herself. Arriving in the United States, 16-year-old Miguel did not know a word of English, except for "hamburger", but he was lucky enough to get into good program adaptation of adolescent immigrants.

In 1968 Jackie and Mike move to Houston and get married. Mike adopts 4-year-old Jeff, the Bezos spouses have common children - daughter Christina and son Mark.

Based on Twitter posts, Bezos has an excellent relationship with his parents. On their significant dates, he posts photos that touchingly comments:

"Thank you for your love, dad!"

“You shaped us, protected us, let us fall and lifted us, you LOVED us, always and unconditionally. Thank you for everything. I love you, Mom"

Summer Vacation: It's Nice to Have a Country House

Already in childhood, Jeff showed ingenuity: not wanting to go to bed, he disassembled his crib with a screwdriver, and as he grew older, he built an alarm system so that his younger brother and sister did not go into his room. Although Mike gave his son a garage for his experiments, Bezos's real play began in the summer.

Every summer, from 4 to 16 years old, Jeff spent on the ranch with his maternal grandparents - Preston and Matty Guise.

The ranch was located in Texas, near the town of Cotulla. Together with his grandfather, they repaired windmills, castrated bulls, repaired water pumps. His grandfather taught him a resourceful approach to solving problems, to believe in himself, without limiting, however, the development of his grandson by physical labor. Preston Giese took the boy to the library, where Jeff was reading Jules Verne, Asimov, Heinlein ... Four decades later, and Bezos will receive the Heinlein Prize for achievements in the commercialization of space!

But his grandfather also taught him a "lesson in kindness." Once, 10-year-old Jeff thought that smoking shortened his grandmother's life by 9 years. When he told Matty Guise about this, she suddenly burst into tears, because she was unsuccessfully fighting cancer. “Someday you will understand that being kind is more difficult than being smart,” his grandfather said to Jeff.

In the early 2000s, Bezos buys a large ranch in Texas, explaining that he wants to pass on the experience that he has gained to the children. The Bezos ranch is truly huge - 117 thousand hectares, and Blue Origin is located on its territory.

Study: three schools - one result

In Houston, a boy goes to River Oaks Elementary School, studying under the program for gifted children. At the bus stop, Jeff had to be already at 7 in the morning, because the school was located 35 km from the house. One of the teachers described the smart little boy as follows: “I see no limits to what he is able to achieve with minimal outside interference”.

In 1977 the family moved to Pesacola, Florida. In order for her son to be admitted to the program for gifted children here, Jackie convinced the school administration to deviate from the rules (the students should have been observed for a year beforehand). Bezos' playmate Joshua Weinstein reveals that Jeff's secret to success lies in heredity: "Look at his mother, she is the most stubborn and at the same time the sweetest and most understanding woman I have ever met."

After 2 years, the family moves again, now to Miami. Jeff studies at Miami Palmetto High School, attends chess and scientific circles, and works part-time at McDonald's in the summer. Twice in the academic year, Jeff became the best in school in mathematics, three times in science. He received a Farewell Graduation Speech and a Silver Knight State Award. In his graduation speech, Bezos talked about his dreams of saving humanity by creating colonies on space stations and quoted a line from the song for the Star Trek TV series - "Space is the last frontier."

Ursula Werner, Jeff's girlfriend in high school, describes him as a creative and romantic nature. With Ursula, Jeff created the first Dream Institute business: educational courses for students in grades 4-6. In an interview that Ursula gave in the 90s, she voiced the reason why Bezos wants to make more money: he wants to reach Space.

Studying at the University

Bezos easily enters Princeton University (Faculty of Physics, Department of Electronic Measuring Instruments and Computer Science). With zeal he masters programming, having discerned the future in computer technologies. Jeff also joins the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa academic society, which is granted an average of one in 100 applicants.

In 1986, Bezos received a Bachelor's Degree and a Phi Beta Kappa distinction.

Work "for the uncle": "skyscrapers, skyscrapers, and I am so clever"

Before starting his own business, the former student changed several bosses. This is what his work book would look like if it existed:

• 1986 - 1988 Fitel
  The company carried out transactions with securities, and Bezos developed software that tracks the difference in quotations.
• 1988 - 1990 Bankers Trust
  From work for this financial company Bezos put on his resume "finance is not mine"
• 1990 - 1994 D. E. Shaw & Co. (abbreviated as DESCO)
  Work for this investment fund turned out to be the most fruitful - here Bezos conceived the idea of ​​his own business, and immediately he found his wife.

Hedge fund founder David Shaw, professor at Columbia University, is now also on the Forbes list of billionaires (# 85). Shaw notes that Bezos has developed both halves of the brain: a "techie programmer" is combined with a "creative with a developed sense of taste."

At DESCO, located on the top floors of a skyscraper in Manhattan, the principle of a continuous working day was applied. Bezos loved it: he had a sleeping bag in place in case he slept! Colleague Nicholas Lovejoy admitted that the sleeping bag used to be bored without work: during night office vigils, employees often cut into the bridge.

Bezos could afford "night vigils", since then he was single. The guy approached the search for his "half" analytically: he enrolled in a dance school, believing that this would help increase the "female flow" - by analogy with the "transaction flow", a parameter well known to brokers from Wall-street.

However, Bezos found his beloved not at the disco, but in the office.

Jeff was looking for a woman who is talented, resourceful and at the same time capable of creating a cozy home. His chosen one was 23-year-old Mackenzie Tuttle, who, after Priston University, got a job at DESCO as an administrative assistant.

Once Jeff, calling a limousine, took his colleagues to a party at a nightclub. From the side it was noticeable that with his behavior he wanted to attract the attention of Mackenzie. The girl, on the contrary, convinces that it was she who chose Bezos: "My office was next to him, and throughout the day I listened to his fabulous laugh," the girl told Vogue in 2012. "How could I not fall in love?"

One way or another, 3 months after the meeting, their engagement took place, after another 3 months - the wedding. The wedding was celebrated at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach in 1993.

The choice of Bezos was absolutely correct, their family life turned out to be happy.

Step into the unknown

For 4 years at DESCO, Bezos rose to the position of senior vice president, and realized that he was ripe to start his own business.

Jeff was attracted by the potential of the Web: one evening he read that the number of users of the World Wide Web had increased by 2,300% in a year. This figure robbed him of peace. The principle of "minimizing regrets" helped him make a decision: he introduced himself to be 80 years old, and thought about his life. Would he regret that he started working with the Internet and lost? No. And if he never tries, will he regret it in old age? Yes.

In May 1994, looking out the window of the office located on the 40th floor of the skyscraper at 120 West 45th Street, Bezos pondered the idea of ​​opening a marketplace on the Internet, a store where you can buy…. Then Jeff thought about it. What will find demand among buyers who are used to twirling the goods in their hands before buying?

The Internet came to the rescue, giving out a list of 20 most bought goods: CDs, books, clothes, etc. After some thought, Jeff settled on books. But how to compete with cute bookstores, where the smell of fresh printing hovers and the rustling of pages is heard? An online store can attract customers with only one choice - an unlimited choice!

Before making a decision, Jeff consulted with his wife. According to him, she "married a relatively stable" fool "", and now he offered her risks and uncertainty. I also asked my parents for advice, because I was counting on financial assistance. Jackie gently suggested that the first-born do "it" after work or on Saturday and Sunday, but Bezos realized that things were changing too quickly.

The beginning of the way:Books, money, two tables

Parents invested $ 100 thousand, everything that they saved for a comfortable old age, although Bezos honestly warned them that the probability of losing money is 70%. “We invested not in the business, but in our boy,” admits Jackie. Bezos himself invested $ 10 thousand, in the next 1.5 years the enterprise was financed through loans.

The company was founded on June 5, 1994 in Seattle. Jeff chose this city for three reasons:

1 he was a technology hub

2 was located close to a major book distributor

3 there lived Nick Hanauer, an acquaintance of Bezos who would later play an important role in introducing Jeff to investors

The first office was in a garage, where Bezos set up a couple of computers and personally assembled two desks from the door. Amazon now even has a Table Out of the Door Award for "well thought out ideas to drive down prices." The business "from the garage" began with many billionaires, for example, and.

History of the name: from "corpse" to Amazon

To choose a name for the firm, Bezos and his wife held a brainstorming session. Options were considered: MakeItSo.com (this is the command repeated by Captain Picard of Star Track), Awake.com, Browse.com, Bookmall.com. Bezos settled on Cadabra Inc., with a hint of magic, and the company was incorporated under that name. Todd Tarbert, the company's lawyer, honestly said that this name sounds indistinct, it is perceived by ear as "cadaver" (English "corpse").

Bezos knew how to admit mistakes. Leafing through the dictionary by the letter "A", he turned his eyes to Amazon. Amazon is what you need! The deepest river on the planet - and the world's largest bookstore! On November 1, 1994, the Amazon.com address was registered. In public, the founder calls his brainchild “Amazon.com”, not just “Amazon”.

In the first version of the company logo, the letter "A" depicted a stylized river flowing down from the top of the mountain. When the store expanded in the early 2000s and turned from a bookstore into a “store of everything”, the logo was changed - now the arrow emphasizes that the buyer will find everything on the resource, from “A” to “Z”.

Here is an abbreviated list of candidate requirements published in August 1994 on the Usenet bulletin board:

Bezos rejected job seekers who wanted to keep the middle ground between work and family. Those whom Jeff hired at the dawn of Amazon were called "crazy" by the environment; a dozen years later, the same acquaintances were proud that they had a friend working for Bezos.

July 16, 1995, the working version of the site was launched . The resource was not just a book catalog, the site posted book reviews, reader comments, and customer reviews (which the staff initially wrote themselves). For book readers, the site becomes almost social network.

At first, Jeff managed with a small team of programmers who developed the site during the day and packed the ordered books in the evening. Everyone was working on fire, and soon additional staff had to be hired. Bezos' favorite expression has no place in life:

It is difficult to say how many pizzas it will take to feed the 566,000 employees working at Amazon. There are 45 thousand workers in Seattle alone! However, Bezos does not even try to feed everyone: there are no free snacks in the offices. Employees themselves pay for both parking spaces and travel tickets. For the sake of big ideas, Bezos is used to limiting himself and the team. In his opinion, frugality promotes innovation, as well as other difficulties.

Despite the fact that in 2018 workers in Germany, Spain and Poland went on strike (not for the first time in the company's history), the press service of Amazon is convinced that it provides decent conditions and fair wages - 12.2 euros per hour.

In the list of "20 best employers" in 2017, the company took 17th position (data from the Glassdoor human resource). According to Forbes, the company is No. 5 in the World's Best Employers 2018.

There are also bonuses in working for "Uncle Bezos". Amazon has dozens of corporate offices in more than 30 countries around the world, including the Seattle oasis office.

With a $ 4 billion investment, Jeff opened The Spheres, a 1,000-employee office. To maintain the forest atmosphere, the "Sphere" maintains a humidity of 60% (40-60% are standardized by sanitary rules as optimal conditions work). Plants from fifty countries of the world have taken root and flourish in the "Sphere".

And here is the "Harry Potter Room", made based on the works. In the bookcase are Rowling's bestsellers, and on the wall is a quote from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Amazon IPO: "Go to the stock exchange"

In 1996, revenue grew by 40% per month. That same year, the Wall Street Journal dedicated Bezos an article “How the Wall Street Clever Found His Market Niche Selling Books Online,” doubling the number of daily orders. After receiving $ 1 million in investment, the company is modernizing equipment and hiring personnel.

In 1997, 3 years after its founding, the founder of Amazon.com takes the company to an IPO. Bezos saw the initial public offering as a landmark event that strengthened the firm's image in the minds of clients. Before going public, the head of the company used every chance to "flash" in public.

The initial public offering on the NASDAQ on May 15, 1997 was successful and raised $ 54 million. The cost of one share was then $ 18, now this figure is about $ 1600 (NASDAQ: AMZN). Amazon shares are in the TOP-10 most expensive valuable papers(the most expensive are Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shares).

Bezos and his family invested in the business equity, officially became millionaires. At the moment, Bezos owns 16% of the company. By the way, the founder of AliExpress is also a shareholder of Amazon.

Amazon Expansion: Bookstore Is Transforming ... Transforming ...

DVD trade

Bezos decides to go beyond the "bookstore itself," and the next product on the site is DVDs. In April 1998, Bezos purchases the IMDb movie website, which allows the website to trade movie products. 1.5 months after entering the DVD market, Amazon becomes the largest video seller on the Internet! The selection of discs with music and films exceeded the assortment of offline stores, and discounts on goods were up to 40%.

Even then, Bezos said: "Our strategy is to become the center of e-commerce." "A fly in the ointment" was the rejection of store expansion among inveterate bibliophiles, but the main problem remained the absence. The market for discs, like books, was marginal. The spiteful critics rubbed their palms: "Amazon has shown that it can sell a lot of books cheaply without profit, and now it will show how to sell mountains of discs, and get even less." The skeptics' predictions came true, Bezos lost money, but in a third of the year he sold more discs than the existing leaders.

Mad 1999

Jeff had the money from the IPO and was confident that "time is running out." At that time, he was mastering a new industry almost monthly and investing / acquiring new companies, at the same time attracting more and more new investors.

In March 1999, he opened Amazon Auctions on the site to compete with eBay, but this company was too tough for him.

Having bought Alexa Internet Amazon for $ 250 million, Bezos was able to save and analyze information about purchases, and subsequently recommend products to the client that they might like. Today, Amazon is one of the largest personal data collection firms (Google is the largest).

In November 1999, the predecessor stores of the Amazon Marketplace were announced, where private firms could also trade. The head of the company said altruistically: "if we are not competitive, we should not interfere with the client."

The range of products offered grew, the motto on the site changed from “The largest bookstore on Earth” to “Books, music and much more”, and then to “The largest selection on Earth”. In December 1999, Time named Bezos the Person of the Year.

At the same time, in 1999 the share price was falling rapidly, market analysts kept repeating that the company was not profitable, which lost $ 720 million and gained $ 2 billion in debts!

Losing streak

A year later, the corporation was seized by a crisis: they began to predict the collapse of Amazon, because the sale of goods at a price below the market price did not bring income. Yet in March 2000, when the dot-com bubble burst and a large number of IT firms went bankrupt, Amazon.com, having lost about $ 500 million, survived thanks to its long-term growth prospects.

In 2002-2003, top-level managers left the company, having lost faith in the future of the company. “We've been losers for a long time,” Bezos admits in an interview. "I like it when there are failures."

Own-made gadgets

Luck followed failure. In 2007 Jeff announced the Amazon Kindle e-book reader. The product was non-standard for the company's focus, but Bezos did not regret developing the finance gadget, once again showing an entrepreneurial feel.

The success of the Kindle was obvious: without advertising, only due to customer reviews, "readers" were sold like hot cakes. The first readers, priced at $ 399, sold out in 5.5 hours! Stephen King's story "Ur" mentions a non-existent Amazonian "pink Kindle" that opens access to data from other worlds.

In mid-2016, the company enters the smartphone market with the Amazon Fire Phone.

Since March 2006 Amazon has been leasing its own computing power - the platform cloud services Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company is the world's largest cloud service provider. In 2017, it held 47.1% of the cloud market.

Amazon is now an online retail giant and is listed on Forbes:

• # 1 Top 100 Digital Companies 2018
• # 5 World's Most Innovative Companies 2018
• # 5 World's Most Valuable Brands 2018

What is unique about Bezos's online store, as opposed to hundreds of online startups of that time? At the core of Amazon are three ideas that propelled the company to prosperity. Here are Jeff Bezos' rules of success:

I just want to exclaim "Yes, Cap!" But the fact of the matter is that in Bezos's interpretation, simple postulates work, and work perfectly:

1

The backbone at Amazon is customer care. Top managers of the company, including Bezos, undergo training at the call center 2 days a year so as not to forget how to serve a client with sympathy.

At one time, the chef insisted that the packaging of goods be made of harder cardboard so that buyers can reuse it, for storage or shipping. Customer care? Yes, but on the other hand - unobtrusive distribution of the company logo. An ingenious solution.

2

Jeff Bezos is truly an open-mind person: open to new ideas and able to generate them.

Innovation at Amazon is dictated by the client, his feedback, needs are the main criterion for assessing: "Our innovations begin with the client."

At first, it came to funny situations, up to the point when Jeff offered a disgruntled buyer to wash his car. After all, Bezos promoted a special attitude towards the client! When the store expanded, it was no longer possible to communicate with each client, and Bezos decided to completely get away from personal communication. Instead of calls to confirm orders, sms and e-mails were sent, which in those days was an original innovation.

Some internet chips that now seem natural were "born" on Amazon.com. For example, a one-click shopping, when, having registered once, the data payment card and shipping address are not entered with every purchase, but are automatically saved.

Later, this technology was licensed for an app store.

In 1998, Bezos acquires Junglee, a website that provides information on product prices and sites where you can buy it. By incorporating this technology into his resource, Bezos was faced with a misunderstanding. Most were perplexed: the idea of ​​referring a customer to another resource began to be considered a valuable tool for gaining trust only after the emergence of the Google service. The businessman himself declared: "Even if we do not sell what the buyer needs, we can find it."

3

The founder of the portal was prepared for the fact that his actions would be misunderstood for a long time. When he gave merchants the Amazon Marketplace to sell his wares, some called Bezos crazy. Why launch competitors on your website?

However, Jeff, allowing him to trade, turned the resource into the best place to search for any goods. Bezos relied on a long-term perspective, not rapid growth. Although the company's balance sheet was initially anemic, customer focus and patience paid off.

The three pillars on which Jeff Bezos' strategy is based are related to each other: the client defines innovations, the implementation of which often does not involve instant financial returns, and it takes business foresight and patience to see the results of innovations.

Now in the world of Amazon.com, you can buy everything - from books and electronics to jewelry and furniture. is gaining momentum, another e-commerce leader, and his "Alibaba" constantly appears in infographics next to "Amazon".

Not only their companies are competitors, but also in relation to employees, managers manifest themselves as antagonists. Jack - arranges a "mass wedding day" for employees, and Jeff - does not even fork out for free parking for colleagues. Jack and Jeff have different philosophies, but surprisingly, both have achieved success.

Jeff Bezos has the same "male toys": space and energy. Musk has SpaceX, Bezos has Blue origin, Musk has SolarCity, Bezos has an Amazon wind farm.

They were honored with the same Heinlein Prize for their contribution to the commercialization of space - Bezos in 2016, Musk in 2011.

Space company Blue origin: you give reusability!

Blue origin is the world's first private aerospace company, founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000. Its launch site is located on the Bezos Ranch in Texas (West Texas Launch Site).

Jeff is here on Wednesdays, skillfully distributing time between other businesses. He is the sole owner and has no intention of selling the firm. Jeff finances the company's activities through the sale of Amazon shares and attracting investors. Jeff invests about $ 1 billion annually.

The main mission - space tourism - the company embodies by designing and manufacturing a single-stage suborbital spacecraft New Shepard (named after Alan Shepard, who made a 15-minute suborbital flight in 1961).

New Shepard is capable of leaving Earth for a relatively short time. According to the plan, having brought the capsule into Space, the launch stage returns to Earth, followed by the landing of the capsule with the crew and passengers.

Test flights began in 2015. On November 23, 2015, New Shepard rose more than 100 km above the Earth. Its stage undocked and successfully completed a vertical landing on the designated site, deviating from the landing site by 1.5 m. New Shepard became the first launch vehicle in the history of the space industry to successfully return to Earth.

Video: Historic Rocket Landing

The Blue Origin founder called stage reuse a "turning point" and admitted that he wants to refuel the rocket and send it flying again.

He congratulated Bezos on a successful test, but emphasized that suborbital flight and space flight are two big differences. The competitor noted that the speed of New Shepard is only enough to get into space, and not go into low-earth orbit. Returning a spacecraft from Earth's orbit is considered much more difficult than returning a spacecraft that, like New Shepard, only gained altitude and went into space.

New Shepard has won the 2016 National Aeronautic Association Astronautics Achievement Award.

By the end of 2018, Bezos is planning tests with people on board, ticket sales are expected to begin in 2019. The founder of the company wants to be one of the first passengers.

Long term goal Jeff revealed in a tweet, "We're going into space to save the Earth." By the way, Bezos actively uses Twitter to communicate with the public, he owns shares in this company.

In addition to Shepard, since 2012 Blue Origin has been designing a heavy 2- and 3-stage orbital reusable rocket New Glenn (named after astronaut John Glenn).

In October 2018, Jeff Bezos thanked the United States Air Force for the confidence in the $ 500 million contract with Blue Origin to build New Glenn. Jeff will strive to provide reliable access to Space:

The wind farm is equipped with over a hundred turbines, each with a rotor diameter twice the wingspan of a Boeing 787. The Amazon wind farm will add over 1 million megawatt hours to the grid annually. This is the largest wind farm to date, the launch of which Jeff, standing at an altitude of over 90 m, was "washed" in 2017.

In August 2013, Jeff acquired the crisis-ridden American publishing house The Washington Post for $ 250 million.

The businessman himself admits that he succumbed to the love of experiments in order to revive the famous publication.

The entrepreneur is systematically converting the newspaper into digital form, reducing the circulation of printed copies. This is not surprising, since back in 2010, sales of e-books on Amazon.com exceeded sales of paper books.

Mr Bezos owns venture capital firm Bezos Expeditions, which has shares in Twitter, Uber, Rethink Robotics, and more.

It is impossible not to note the participation of Bezos in the project to build the largest clock on Earth. The idea for the long-term construction, known as "The Long Now", belongs to the inventor Danny Hillis, a friend of Bezos. The construction of a huge clock, which will tick once a year, is being carried out on the territory owned by the CEO of Amazon. Jeff is called "crazy" for doing this engineering challenge, but he retorts, "This is the most sane thing I've ever done." According to him, many wonders have come down to us from ancient civilizations, including the Egyptian pyramids. How not to leave to posterity something equally majestic, calculated for millennia?

In 2009 and 2010, the billionaire donated millions of dollars to a research center working on cancer problems. It also sponsors Unity Biotechnology's anti-aging project.

The businessman founded the Bezos family foundation, the directorship of which is held by his brother and sister, and the activities are run by his parents. The Bezos Families charity funds grants for training and mobilizes students to help in the disaster area.

In September 2018, Bezos announced his readiness to contribute $ 2 billion to another fund, Day One. The target audience of the fund will be the segment of homeless people and preschoolers from low-income families, for whom institutions based on Montessori methods will be opened. The head of the "store of everything" explains his desire to help as follows: "If our grandchildren do not live a better life than we do, something in the world is going wrong."

The best books about a businessman are rightfully two bestsellers. This is the One Click Edition. Jeff Bezos and the Amazon.com Success Story by Richard L. Brandt and The Everything Store by Brad Stone. Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Era ”, which was recognized as the Best Book of 2013 by Forbes, Bloomberg and Washington Post.

The movie about Jeff Bezos has not yet been filmed, but he himself managed to flicker on the screens. For the tape "Star Trek: Infinity" (remember that "Star track" is his favorite series), he appeared in the form of an alien. The film debut went well, with director Justin Lin tweeting, "The great thing about Star Trek is that it has people as passionate about it as Jeff Bezos."

What he is, Jeff Bezos: a portrait of an entrepreneur

Bezos "philosophical"

In 2003, while searching for a missile launch site, Bezos flew by helicopter. One of them ended in an accident. Bezos admits that in the seconds that could be the last, he thought: "what a ridiculous death." Probably, a businessman already appreciates every moment of his life, if the helicopter accident, in his own admission, did not affect him in any way. He says that he has come to the only conclusion - "helicopters should be avoided."

Still, he can give a couple of philosophical advice: do not regret anything, follow your heart, find your passion and set high goals.

And - who would have thought - a brilliant analytical mind and tough organizer recommends "not to allow your intellectual essence to dominate."

Over the decades of public speaking, Jeff has worked on the communicative qualities of speech, improved diction and audience skills. After all, CEO appearances and presentations are just as important to the company's image as well-thought-out advertising campaigns.

In covering his plans in public, Bezos is very restrained, he does not disclose his plans. He gives interviews to the media, but not often, and tends to limit himself to abstract sayings.

Sometimes, also not often, he attends exhibitions and conferences. Here's Jeff with the designer at the Schiaparelli And Prada: Impossible Conversations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Basically, Jeff lives in a very secluded life. He spends most of his time in a house on the shores of Lake Washington in Medina, Minnesota, near the Gates family.

The mansion with the adjacent territory occupies 2 hectares, and the area of ​​all residential buildings is 2,700 square meters.

In addition to a large ranch in Texas, CEO Amazon owns a couple of homes in Beverly Hills and New York. While the internet tycoon may purchase a private jet, he continues to drive a humble Honda. Bezos does not use an alarm and tries to sleep at least 8 hours a day. Complementing the cute image of a shy guy, he tweets about how convenient it is to write. financial reports sitting on a children toy.

Bezos often starts laughing in situations where others find nothing funny.

Jeff's laugh attracts the attention of everyone who hears him. But an employee of the company, who previously headed the information department, warns: “You must not deceive, this is a means of disarming and attacking. He attacks you with his laugh. "

At the 2018 MARS conference in California dedicated to the latest developments in the field of robotics and space, Jeff appeared in public wearing dark glasses and a dog robot.

After that, memes and jokes appeared on the Internet with the captions "he looks like he's going to kill us all."

All plans of Jeff Bezos do not count: this is the launch of space tourists in 2019, and the opening in 2021 of 3 thousand stores without cash registers. One of them is already accepting customers - launched in 2016 in test mode for the firm's employees, in 2018 this innovative store became available to all Seattle residents.

Jeff believes that there are many things in the world that have not yet been invented, and he is sure that the prospects of the Internet have not yet been explored. He admits that he often hears the question "what changes await us in the future?", And complains that no one asks "what will remain unchanged?" On the last question, Bezos shares his vision: « It’s impossible to imagine a future where, 10 years from now, a customer will say, “I like Amazon, but I wish the prices were higher,” or “I love the store, but could you please deliver the goods at a slower pace.”

By offering the best service, Jeff Bezos has won the trust of millions of buyers. “Thank you for making my life easier and easier ... They say that raising a child requires the efforts of a whole village, but in my case all my mother needs is Amazon, a credit card and a smartphone!” - such reviews warm Jeff's soul ...

One day, risk-taking, Jeff Bezos changed global retail forever.