Jeff Bezos, the outgoing CEO of Amazon, is one of the richest men in the world with a net worth of $ 186.8 billion, according to Forbes financial magazine as of January 2021. But that wasn’t always the case – in fact, prior to 1994, Bezos was hardly an employee, albeit a high-level one, at a Wall Street company. But that changed with ambition, and above all, in order to anticipate that the world would go through a great revolution, that of the internet, and that this would change the main habit of the capitalist world: shopping.
The story goes that it all started in a garage in Seattle, where Bezos started an online bookstore called Amazon. The story is correct but very brief. In fact, the history of Bezos’s wealth dates back to the 1980s, when he worked at McDonald’s while studying Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at Princeton University. Graduated with honors, Bezos began working at startups and later joined DE Shaw & Co., a Wall Street investment bank.
Then he began a career of meteoric rise that in just eight years led him to the vice presidency and a coveted salary. But he wanted something more. Then, they say, he invited his chief banker to a walk through Central Park where he revealed his millionaire idea: selling books online. Her boss advised her to forget about her dreams and focus on her work.
Bezos did just the opposite and supported morally by his first wife MacKenzie Scott, and financially by his parents, who loaned him $ 300,000, he moved to Seattle where he rented a house that would become Amazon’s first office. After a few months of work and after considering names such as Cadabra and Relentless, Amazon – named after the Amazon River, the largest in the world – debuted online on July 16, 1995.
Within two months, Amazon was selling books to 45 countries and was making about $ 20,000 a week. But far from opening a bottle of champagne, Bezos dedicated himself to reinvesting everything he earned. His goal was to grow at full speed and increase the loyalty of his customers.
This business philosophy led to another milestone: On May 15, 1997, three years after its founding, Amazon was listed on the stock market at a price of $ 18 per share. In January 2021, the shares are trading at around $ 3,000, so those who invested, let’s say $ 5,000 on that magical May 15, 1997, today would have a fortune of close to $ 2.5 million.
The capitalization that Amazon received after its first public offering gave Bezos funds to diversify the catalog of his company. Then the online bookstore started to look more like the Amazon we know. His catalog began to include clothing, music records, and video games.
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Bezos, meanwhile, maintained his strategy of reinvesting the profits in new business divisions. Thus were born other arms such as Amazon Web Services – one in three web pages “live” there – and products such as Alexa and the Kindle e-book reader.
Of course, along the way, Bezos faced tough times. The strongest was the divorce with his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, which beyond the sentimental bitterness, represented a cut to his fortune of $ 36,000 million that, incidentally, made his ex-partner the fourth richest woman on the planet.
Accusations of labor abuse and hundreds of complaints for precarious working conditions also weigh on Bezos. Only during the months of the Great Confinement – which represented more money for Amazon -, hundreds of employees in warehouses around the world protested the lack of supplies to prevent infections in the middle of days well over eight hours.
However, 26 years after its founding, Amazon definitely marked a before and after in the world of shopping. In the United States, half of online sales go through the Jeff Bezos brand. This market dominance makes it the most valuable brand in the world, with a value of $ 187 billion and annual sales of $ 177 billion.
And although Bezos enjoys the benefits of the company he founded, he continues to reinvest part of them not only in Amazon but in other companies such as Blue Origin, which aspires to create space colonies. However, in that market, he has competition from another millionaire: Elon Musk.