Tiffany Raiford
Jeff Bezos is the man who founded Amazon.com. A key player in the rapid growth of not only e-commerce but the internet as a whole, he is one of the most inexhaustible businessmen in the world. He is currently, according to Forbes, the fifth wealthiest man in the entire world with his billions and his personal net worth. The impressive list of men with whom he shares the very dignified top five spots on this list include two other Americans; Bill Gates at number one and Warren Buffet at number three. For Jeff Bezos, his place on this list is a result of hard work, dedication and a sheer genius when it comes to his dream.
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Net Worth
Jeff Bezos is a very successful man, and nothing proves that more than his net worth. With an estimated net worth of more than $59.1 billion, he is among the wealthiest men in the world, and that belies his success. He accrued much of his net worth through the sales of businesses, but he has worked long and hard to ensure that he can claim his rightful place among the most famous, wealthiest and most well-known and respected men in the world. His brilliance is worth mentioning, and his sheer knack for making the right choices in business, which are not always the popular ones, have both helped shape him into the man he has become.
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He’s from New Mexico
Many people assume that with his last name, Jeff Bezos is from another country. He is actually a man who was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was born on January 12, 1964. His mother is Jacklyn and his father is Ted. His many ancestors actually lived in Texas for many years and were able to acquire nearly 25,000 acres of land there, and that makes him one of the biggest land owners in the state as of 2015. He is not ashamed of his heritage, and he does take good care to maintain his family’s name and reputation as being a hardworking individual.
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His Mother was A Teenager when giving birth
Something that many people simply do not know about one of the most famous men in the world is that his mother was all of a teenager when she gave birth. She was only a girl, and she was not quite old enough to make good decisions on her own. She married Bezo’s father and that lasted for all of a year. Too young and too immature, she divorced him and she continued to raise her son with the help of her family and all of their land in Texas.
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Bezos is His Stepfather’s Name
When his parents divorced when he was only an infant, Jeff Bezos had a different name. However, he does not use it. His mother remarried when he was only four to a man called Miguel Bezos. His stepfather is Cuban, and he adopted his new wife’s son. His stepfather was a driving force in his life, immigrating to America all by himself when he was only 15, working through college and eventually becoming an engineer for a little company called Exxon. Since his stepfather legally adopted him, he’s always considered him his real father and has always loved him.
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He Grew Up in Houston
When his family moved to Houston after his mother remarried, Jeff Bezos knew he would spend the rest of his childhood there. He did, and he was good at being a child. He spent many years in school, always performing well and taking care of his grades and his reputation. However, he would travel to his grandfather’s ranch every summer to spend time with him there to learn the ins and outs of ranching and farm life. He learned to do just about everything you can do when you are in this kind of work, and it helped to shape him tremendously.
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He’s Always Been Technical
Jeff Bezos might have worked on the farm with his grandfather and grew up in Texas, but he has always shown an interest in the technological aspect of life. He spent much of his childhood showing an interest in the technology his family had at home and on his grandparent’s farm. He worked well with it, learned more about it and always showed a very impressive aptitude in working with items of this nature. It’s something he’s been good at a very long time.
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He’s Always Been Smart
We’ve discussed his technical genius, but did you know that Jeff Bezos is not just a smart man when it comes to business? He’s always been a smart man in everything he’s done. When he was in high school, he worked hard got good grades and was the one person in his class to graduate with the highest GPA. He graduated as the Valedictorian of his class and was able to go on and give the speech at his graduation. We would love to hear that speech today knowing that he would later become one of the world’s most prolific billionaires. Those in his graduating class had no idea he’d be one of the most influential people in the world.
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He’s A Princeton Graduate
Not all tech geniuses go to college or even graduate from college. Jeff Bezos is not one of those men. He was given a chance to attend Princeton University, and he took that chance. He wanted to study physics while he was there, but he became more interested in his first love; computers. He decided to go that route instead, and eventually went on to graduate summa cum laude. He took with him to Bachelor’s of Science degrees. One as in computer science and the other in electrical engineering; likely due to the fact that engineering is what his father did during his childhood.
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He Worked on Wall Street
While many of the men and women who work for Wall Street do so in the investment property or the banking game, Jeff Bezos did not. He actually worked in the technological field. He would build networks for international trade. He worked with some of the biggest companies in the world in New York, including Bankers Trust and Fitel. He was there for several years as he graduated in 1986, but that is not what made him famous or what would launch him into the world he is currently in.
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He Founded Amazon On A Cross-Country Drive
It was 1994 when Jeff Bezos decided to take a cross country drive. He left his job in New York to drive to Seattle. He’d heard that this thing called the internet was getting really big, and he wanted to test it out and try it out on his own. He was excited about it, and he made up the business plan in his mind as he made the drive. He was not nervous about leaving his job or about what he would do once he got to Seattle. He knew what his world would look like, what he would do and how he would make his business work for him.
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He Founded Amazon in His Garage
Now that he’d had several days of driving across the country to make his plan in his mind for a business called Amazon, he knew that he had to get to work. His first months of work were set up in his garage. He did not have much of an issue with it, and he was ready to get the ball rolling. With such a meticulous attention to detail, he was known at the time for being so careful about the small things that he would not overlook anything that might need to be done, that might happen or that might throw a wrench in his plans for creating a stellar business.
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He Was One of the First Investors in Google
One thing that really sets Jeff Bezos apart from the crowd is the fact that he was one of the very first people to invest in a little something called Google. He gave the startup $250,000 back in 1998 so that the company could work on making the internet something even more remarkable than it already was. When so many people decided that they would not invest in the company, he made the decision to do it and he has made millions off of his quarter million-dollar investment in the past few decades.
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He Believes in Same-Sex Marriage
Back in 2012, Jeff Bezos made a very controversial decision that not many rich, powerful men are willing to make. He and his wife invested $2.5 million of their own money into a same-sex marriage bill in Washington. The bill was passed, but it was a very controversial move for him to make. Most people are not willing to share their actual believes for fear that it will have a negative effect on their business practice. He was willing to do that for his belief, and his wife stood behind that decision with a very good backing and with great success.
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He’s Criticized for Not Being Generous
Despite the fact that Jeff Bezos has donated millions of dollars of his money to causes in which he believes, he is widely criticized for the fact that people feel he should be more giving like Bill Gates. It seems that people find him less likable because he has not signed away his billions like Bill Gates to charities and companies that he believes in, rather he makes contributions where he sees fit and he plans on doing other things with his personal funds and the money he’s made. It’s garnered a lot of criticism from the press and from many people, but at the end of the day it is his money to do with what he pleases; and there is nothing wrong with that.
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He’s Got A Large Family
Jeff Bezos has a large family to support. He and his wife, MacKenzie Bezos, have four children together. This includes three sons and one daughter. The family is close. They spend a lot of time together, though the world does not see much of his children in the media. He does a stellar job of keeping their private lives quite private, which is not something easy to handle when you are one of the most recognizable, most famous and wealthiest men in the world.
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