It is the world's largest online sales company, the largest Internet company by revenue, and the largest provider of virtual assistants and cloud infrastructure services through its Amazon Web Services branch. Was Jeff Bezos a smart student? $32,343 weekly. He retired early to the family ranch, where Jeffrey spent most of the summers of his youth, working with his grandfather at the enormously varied tasks essential to the operation. It was too embarrassing. But Ill add one other thing to what I said earlier. [305][306][307] Later that year, in November, Bezos announced $791M of donations to established, well-known groups, with $100M each going to Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, World Resources Institute and World Wildlife Fund, and the remainder going to 11 other groups. [298] Bezos announced in September 2018 that he would commit approximately $2billion to a fund to deal with American homelessness and establish a network of non-profit preschools for low income communities. What kind of a student were you as a kid? Jeffreys stepfather, Mike Bezos, was born in Cuba; he escaped to the United States alone at age 15, and worked his way through the University of Albuquerque. Madison Beer Childhood Story Plus Untold Biography Facts. How Much Does Jeff Bezos Make Per Second? | Policy Advice I think at times we as a people get confused about it. Seventeen U.S. presidents and more than 150 Nobel laureates have been Phi Beta Kappa members. [209] His wealth's rapid growth from 2016 to 2017 sparked a variety of assessments about how much money Bezos earned on a controlled, reduced time scale. After graduation, Jeff Bezos found employment on Wall Street, where computer science was increasingly in demand to study market trends. What we need is packing tables.. He went to work at Fitel, a start-up company that was building a network to conduct international trade. [10] In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, his wealth grew by approximately $24billion. Weve read about your inventiveness as a kid with your Radio Shack electronics kit and an alarm that you set up in your room. By the time I was in my high school years, I wanted to be a physicist and then by the time I got to college I wanted to be a computer programmer. We have so many customers who treat us so well, and we have the right kind of culture that obsesses over the customer. Yes, Jeff Bezos does have a degree and from a very prestigious university. Jeff Bezos: Its very interesting, because the Internet in general and Amazon.com in particular, is still Chapter One. Does Jeff Bezos Have a Degree? - Celeb Answers [51] He favored diverting Amazon profits back into the company in lieu of allocating it amongst shareholders in the form of dividends. And, I spent three months every year from the age of four to the age of 16 working on the ranch with my grandfather, which was just an incredible, incredible experience. Im going to start this company selling books online.. Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 12, 1964,[12] the son of Jacklyn (ne Gise) and Ted Jorgensen. [218] During March 9, Bezos earned $230,000 every 60 seconds. The computer was fun to play, because people would ask you questions, and theyd say, Computer? And youd say, Working.. Do you have any concerns about what role the computer may play in our lives in the years ahead? [35] In his graduation speech, Bezos told the audience he dreamed of the day when mankind would colonize space. ", "Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos have finalized their divorce agreement, and he's getting 75% of the Amazon shares and voting control of the rest", "Jeff Bezos Buys Three Manhattan Apartments for $80 Million The combined space totals 17,000 square feet", "Amazon's Jeff Bezos Stiffs Tommy Mottola In $7.65 Million Deal", "Will Jeff Bezos live in one of his Upper West Side apartments when Amazon comes to town? [14] Jorgensen was a Danish American unicyclist[15] born in Chicago to a family of Baptists. Thats a real talent some people have to convey the importance of that and to reflect it back to the students. Bell Story: Companies starting out . He has also supported Democrats U.S. representative John Conyers, as well as Patrick Leahy and Republican Spencer Abraham, U.S. senators serving on committees dealing with Internet-related issues. You know, I left this Wall Street firm in the middle of the year. Was there a moment of inspiration? On July 1, Bloomberg announced that Amazon stock set a record high at . Thats fun. He completed fourth to sixth standard studies in River Oaks Elementary School in Houston. In fact, we were packing on our hands and knees on a hard concrete floor. [222] On July 17, 2018, he was designated the "wealthiest person in modern history"[c] by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index,[225] Fortune,[226] MarketWatch,[227] The Wall Street Journal,[228] and Forbes. I can only imagine that by the time Im 70 I will realize I know nothing. How does it fundamentally change a person when they win a lottery? The code worked seamlessly across different computer platforms. I remember playing lots of games in elementary school like kick-the-can, tag, all the outdoor games. Jeff Bezos | lev radin / Shutterstock.com Thats certainly what happened to us. Fortunately, there are a lot of different people motivated by a lot of different things. [101], In 2015, Bezos announced that a new orbital launch vehicle was under development and would make its first flight in the late-2010s. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High in 1982, where he was a straight-A student and the valedictorian. Jeff Bezos: In a strange way, no. In fact, not only was I not the only one, but a lot of people saw it much earlier. 5 Interesting facts you didn't know about Jeff Bezos What does the American Dream mean to you? All that was needed was a single location on the Internet, where the book-buying public could search the available stock and place orders directly. ", "Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos have finalized their divorce agreement", "World's richest man Jeff Bezos divorces", "Jeff Bezos, World's Richest Person, Announces Divorce After 25 Years Of Marriage", "MacKenzie Bezos, author, philanthropist, and soon to be world's richest woman? [265], He is the Honorary Chair of the Explorers Club. I was a good student. Jeffreys maternal ancestors were early settlers in Texas, and over the generations had acquired a 25,000-acre ranch at Cotulla. In 1998 and 1999 you could raise $60 million for an Internet idea without a business plan with a single phone call. Will you please get your parts list straight before we go? Well, that might even lead to more aggregate wealth. I only got to go through school once so I dont know, but I have a feeling I was lucky. Did you grow up there? When you showed up in Seattle, you had left your job, youd left any regrets you might have behind you. [141][142][143], Bezos was seen by some as needlessly quantitative and data-driven. Since I was a little kid I have always been interested. As exciting as that prospect may be, Jeff Bezos has had more terrestrial innovations on his mind as well. Its technically a very hard problem. Upon graduating from college, Jeff. So, thats the first step. Jeff Bezos: I was very difficult to punish for my parents because they would send me to my room, and I was always happy to go to my room because I would just read. Jeffrey P. Bezos | Academy of Achievement Amazon plans to present the television programs through an online video service, the feature films in brick-and-mortar theaters. 1996 - 2023 American AcademyofAchievement. in electrical engineering and computer science; he was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa. I wrote about a 30-page business plan. What was Steve Jobs GPA? I stopped in San Francisco and interviewed vice presidents of engineering, because that was going to be an important long lead time item. During the period between 1986 and early 1994, he worked on Wall Street in several related fields. Here I was, giving myself a 30 percent chance. Youre asking me about my story, and its still the very beginning. With e-book sales increasing by 200 percent a year, Bezos predicted that e-books would overtake paperbacks and become the companys bestselling format within a year. [52] He accepted an estimated $300,000 from his parents as investment in Amazon. That is actually something I should have mentioned. And I think one of the best ways to do that is this notion of projecting yourself forward to age 80, looking back on your life, and trying to make sure youve minimized the number of regrets you have. I think you see it all over the place in many different contexts, but I think we saw it in the Internet world quite a bit, where, at sort of the peak of the Internet mania in say 1999 you found people who were very passionate of something, and they kind of left that job and decided, Im going to do something on the Internet because its almost like the 1849 Gold Rush in a way. I mean, you find that people if you go back and study the history of the 1949 Gold Rush you find that, at that time, everybody who was within shouting distance of California was you know, they might have been a doctor, but they quit being a doctor and they started panning for gold, and that almost never works. [107][108] In May 2018, Bezos maintained that the primary goal of Blue Origin is to preserve the natural resources of Earth by making the human species multi-planetary. ", "What Has Jeff Bezos Chosen to Spend His $140B On? [308][309][310] In April 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bezos donated $100 million to food banks through Feeding America. [45][246] In 1994, they moved across the country to Seattle, Washington, where Bezos founded Amazon. Jeff Bezos , byname of Jeffrey Preston Bezos, (born January 12, 1964, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.), American entrepreneur who played a key role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com, Inc., an online merchant of books and later of a wide variety of products. I think in large part because I never expected to have the means to be a philanthropist, but I think that if you win a lottery of this kind of size, that one of the things that, over time, you have an obligation to do, is to think about the ways that that wealth can be used in a highly leveraged way. I was always a big fan of science fiction, even from when I was, you know, in elementary school reading various things and loved, of course, The Hobbit and Tolkiens trilogy that follows on from that. [24] Jeff attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade. Jeff Bezos age, height, weight, net worth 2023, wife, kids, gay So, stress doesnt come people get stress wrong all the time in my opinion. Bezos founded the aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company Blue Origin in 2000. Bezos once worked in a McDonald's for a short time during his high-school days. In high school, Bezos worked the breakfast shift at McDonald's as a short-order cook. At the peak of this success, Jeff Bezos announced his decision to relinquish the role of CEO at Amazon, effective as of summer 2021. Shortly after getting married to Jeff's mother, Mike adopted Jeff as his son and changed his last name to Bezos. He also purchased the major American newspaper The Washington Post in 2013 for $250million and manages many other investments through his venture capital firm, Bezos Expeditions. What gives you the greatest sense of satisfaction about it? So, I told them that I thought there was a 70 percent chance that they would lose their whole investment, which was a few hundred thousand dollars, and they did it anyway. [173][174], Bezos first became a millionaire in 1997 after raising $54million through Amazon's initial public offering (IPO). You know, things mysteriously because of that invisible hand tend to work out. [135], Journalist Nellie Bowles of The New York Times has described the public persona and personality of Bezos as that of "a brilliant but mysterious and coldblooded corporate titan". We were doing our day jobs, which might have been computer programming all the different things that ten people will do in a tiny start-up company. If theres one reason we have done better than most of our peers in the Internet space over the last six years, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience, and that really does matter, I think, in any business. Was Jeff Bezos a good student? In January 2019, the couple announced plans to divorce. [147] Additionally, Bezos reportedly pitted Amazon teams against each other, and once declined to give Amazon employees city bus passes in order to discourage them from leaving the office. It was the first time in 80 years that the newspaper had passed from the control of the Graham family, descendants of Eugene Meyer, who bought the paper in 1933. For several years, as much as a third of the shares in the company were held by members of the Bezos family. You know, one of the things that its very hard to believe when youre 22 or 23 years old is that you dont already know everything. I have no idea where it came from. [13] At the time of Jeff's birth, his mother was a 17-year-old high-school student and his father was 19 years old. Jeff Bezos: Do something youre very passionate about, and dont try to chase what is kind of the hot passion of the day. Yes. Our garage was basically science fair central, and my mom is a saint, because she would drive me to Radio Shack multiple times a day to the point where she would finally say, Okay. Well, that means that the number of chickens is roughly right, even though theres nobody deciding how many chickens there should be. Jeff Bezos: I was a very nerdy and good student. So that requires not only a lot of planning, a lot of hard work, a big team of people who are all dedicated, but it also requires that not only the planets align, but that you get a few galaxies in there aligning, too. He was an Immigrant who came into the U.S. from Cuba in 1968. He recommended his divorce lawyer, but thats who we used. [51] In late 2002, rapid spending from Amazon caused it financial distress when revenues stagnated. He had help from others, but he was the architect, he engineered them, and just did a fantastic job. [124] In January 2018, an announcement was made concerning Bezos's role within a new, unnamed healthcare company. I was five and six years older than them. Also, he was an active member of Quadrangle Clun at Princeton . ", "Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Hits Record $151 Billion After Strong Amazon 'Prime Day', "Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150 Billion", "Jeff Bezos Is Now the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150 Billion", "Jeff Bezos becomes the richest person in modern history amid Amazon Prime Day kickoff", "Is Jeff Bezos Really the Richest of Them All? [93] The 18-year-old Bezos stated that he wanted to preserve Earth from overuse through resource depletion. When Jeff graduated from Princeton, he had a GPA of 4.3 / 4. With a net worth of US$125 billion as of April 2023, Bezos is the third-wealthiest person in the world and was the wealthiest from 2017 to 2021, according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes.[5][6]. You know the business plan wont survive its first encounters with reality. At the time we launched this business it wasnt even crystal clear that the technology would improve fast enough that ordinary people non-computer people would even want to bother with this technology. That happens to also be a very effective way of deploying an economy so that you get an economy which mostly makes sense. Things never go smoothly. [136][137] Journalist Mark O'Connell criticized Bezos's relentless customer focus as "very small" in terms of impact on humanity as a whole,[138] a sentiment technologist Tim O'Reilly agreed with. We tried to get a lot of the little housekeeping details done even before we arrived in Seattle. [221] Following the report by Quartz, Amazon workers in Poland, (Germany), and Spain participated in demonstrations and labor strikes to draw attention to his growing wealth and the lack of compensation, labor rights, and satisfactory working conditions of select Amazon workers.