Many questions like Where can I find the best toys come to mind, Where can I find discounts on my various clothes, Where can I shop best quality groceries online, come to mind.
The answer to all these kinds of questions is “AMAZON”.
The founder of Amazon is Jeffrey Preston Bezos, aka Jeff Bezos, an American internet entrepreneur, industrialist, media proprietor, and investor. He had a humble beginning and is now known as a technological giant. The story of Bezos is a huge inspiration to many entrepreneurs.
Bezos Childhood
Jeff Bezos was born on January 12, 1964, in Alburbuque, New Mexico to a teenage mother Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen. Jeff was an eccentric genius right from his school. As a kid, he spent his summers with his grandparents and helped them in fixing windmills, vaccinating cattle, and also did other chores. Bezos showed interest in knowing how things work, was incredibly determined, and turned their garage into a laboratory. Also, he learned kindness is an important quality a human can possess.
Moment of changing his Major
Bezos graduated from Princeton in 1986 with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. Initially, he was pursuing a physics major in Princeton. Jeff believed that he wasn’t smart enough to become a great theoretical physicist. So, he changed his major to electrical engineering and computer science and it changed his life completely. This is an important moment in Bezos’s life and indeed helped him in creating “AMAZON”.
Early Professions
After graduation, he was offered work from various firms. He worked at Filtel after which he subsequently transitioned into the banking sector when he worked at Bankers Trust. Afterward, he worked at D.E.Shaw and Co. where he had managed to impress everyone with his unlimited determination and intellect. He also became it’s the youngest vice-president at the age of 30. When his career in finance was immensely rewarding, Jeff Bezos decided to quit his job and enter into the world of e-commerce after learning about the astounding growth on the internet.
The Amazon
In late 1993, he moved to Seattle to make his mark in the internet by opening an online book store. He managed to raise $1 million and set up a business in the garage of his Seattle home by setting up three sun micro stations. Amazon exploded selling books in 50 states and 45 foreign countries within a month. Later, Amazon started selling music CDs. One of their early strategies was providing superior quality. They realized they could expand their selling to other products making it Everything Store. They introduced a new feature in their site called recommendations which brought huge revenues and happy customers. Their all-time strategy has been to provide the best services and to keep their customer base strong. Amazon is not just a retail store but a technology company that has everything the customer needs. It expanded from a small online book store to a huge company with a revenue of 28,052 crores. Amazon continues to enter into markets through various ways like Amazon Prime, Amazon Fresh, Amazon music, Amazon locker, and many more.
Rocket Man
Bezos is known for his incredible work ethic and his tolerance to incompetency. Bezos was passionate about space and rockets right from his childhood days. Jeff’s company Blue Origin was established in 2004and is completely dedicated to space research. It's inspiring how Bezos hasn’t let his passion die. Bezos expects to revolutionize space travel with an equally simple notion: If we’re going to come and go to space, our spaceships will have to come and go, too. As he puts it, “Launch, land, repeat.” The rockets New Shepard and New Glenn are vertical take-offs and vertical landing vehicles. These can be reused multiple times and it helps to drive down the cost of launching payloads to space.
The Washington Post
In 2013, Bezos purchased The Washington Post for 250 million US$ in cash. Bezos said he has a vision that recreates "the 'daily ritual' of reading the Post as a bundle, not merely a series of individual stories. He has been described as a "hands-off owner," holding teleconference calls with executive editor Martin Baron every two weeks. This signaled Bezos’ intent to shift the Post to a more digital focus with a national and global readership. Washington Post won the 2020 Webby Award for News & Politics in the category Social and Webby People’s Voice Award for News & Politics in the category Web.
Fiona
Bezos realized that the potential of the e-book market hadn’t been tapped yet. He led his employees to work on technology that allowed customers to read e-Books. Amazon introduced Kindle, which was called Fiona but publishers weren’t impressed due to lack of design, color and technical problems. Later they made several fixes and unveiled the Kindle. This time it came out as a perfect tool for customers.
Just Bezos Traits
Bezos has been an innovator since childhood which helped him to create magic within the e-commerce industry. He is a complete realist who accurately weighs the pros and cons of a business. He is a risk-taker and isn’t fazed by failure. The result of his gutsy nature is Amazon. Jeff highly values customers and always thinks about what is best for them. Amazon treats customers as extremely precious. The value he gives to his customers is known from the book called “Everything Store Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” written by Brad Stone. Stone remarked, “Bezos always leaves one chair in every meeting empty, the chair represents customers”. He is also known for his double-personality that turns him from a kind person to a rough executive instigating fear and respect in his employees.
Family Life
Jeff and his ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos who were together with him before his first book got sold. They had dated for three months and got married after that. They have four children, three sons and a daughter adopted from China. On January 09, 2019, Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced after 25 years of marriage that they were getting divorced.
The life of Bezos is an example of how hard work, dedication, determination, continuous learning, leadership skills and intense urge to succeed has made Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world.
Dear young entrepreneurs, I hope exploring and understanding Jeff Bezos helps you to reach heights in the future.
Also, have a look at Licious, an online gourmet meat procuring startup, and the story behind.
Read this article on Mark Zuckenberg to read about his journey as well.
Written By - Mahima Sreeram
Edited By - Bhanu Jain
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