Founding Amazon: The Story of The World's Wealthiest Person.

Learn how a business that was started in a garage turned into a multi billion company.

Becoming Bezos

Jeff was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 12th, 1964.

His father was an alcoholic and struggled financially, which led Jeff’s mother to file for divorce.

His mother remarried Miguel “Mike” Bezos, a Cuban immigrant. Jeff took his adoptive father’s last name and became Jeffrey Preston Bezos.

Bezos’s Early interest in Science and Technology

Jeff’s grandfather was a Regional Director of The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque.

He spent summers on his grandfather’s ranch working with him on various repair and technical projects.

Bezos went to Miami Palmetto High School, where he served as a valedictorian of his class. During his valedictorian speech, he talked about his wish to colonize space. (This later influenced Bezos in founding Blue Origin, an aerospace company)

Working at Firms on Wall Street

Jeff graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree from Princeton University. After completing graduation he started his career by working on building a network for international trade at Fitel. He then switched to Banker’s Trust, where he was a product manager.

In 1990, Jeff joined DE Shaw and Co., a hedge fund and investment firm, where he became the youngest vice president.

He found his future wife, MacKenzie Tuttle at the firm. Bezos was one of the people who interviewed MacKenzie!

The Idea

In 1994, while working for DE Shaw and Co., Jeff came across a report in which he read about the rapid use of internet and web usage, which was increasing at 2300% per year. This led Bezos to think about creating an E-commerce business.

During a road trip from New York to Seattle, Jeff, and MacKenzie discussed and talked about various ideas that could be used to create a business that could take advantage of the fast-growing internet usage worldwide.

They thought of selling a product online and making a business through it. After considering many products, they finally decided to sell books online due to easy and inexpensive shipment, selling books online allowed them to offer a wide range of books compared to physical stores as there was no need to stock all the physical books in one place.

AbraCadabara!

Jeff initially named the company “Cadabara” which was short for “Abracadabra” because he wanted to convey to people that something magical is happening.

But one day Jeff’s lawyer pointed out that “Cadabra” sounded like “Cadaver” and people can mishear it. The name was changed to “Amazon” based on the largest river in the world as Jeff wanted his business to become the world’s largest online bookselling store. As Amazon started with the letter ‘A’, it would appear first when people did online searches.

Setting up the Company

In 1994, Jeff left his job at DE Shaw and Co. and moved to Seattle, Washington to start the business. Seattle had a strong presence of tech companies and was close to major distribution centers.

He got his first investment of $300,000 from his parents

Jeff and his wife started the online bookselling business from the garage of their rented house in Seattle. The garage served as the first office of Amazon, where Jeff his wife, MacKenzie, and two early employees, Shel Kaphan and Paul Davis worked.

Launching Amazon.com

Amazon.com was officially launched on 16th July 1995 as an online bookstore.

It offered a catalog of about one million books, including a vast variety of titles that might not be available locally.

Amazon was a user-friendly website with easy navigation and consisted of detailed product information and product reviews.

The site sold the books across the United States and 45 other countries in the first month of its launch, generating $20,000 per week!

Long-Term Growth over Short-Term Profit

From the start, Bezos had a vision of making Amazon a company that could offer a wide range of products online. He believed in long-term growth rather than short-term profit.

In 1998, Amazon began selling CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes online, expanding beyond books.

In 2000, Amazon started its marketplace program which allowed third parties to list their products online on amazon.com. This significantly increased the variety of products available for customers online.

By 2015, Amazon became the world’s largest e-commerce company globally, with a net worth of 211 billion US$.

And this is how Jeff Bezos became the wealthiest person in the world from 2017 to 2021.

Bezos today, is the world’s second richest person. Elon Musk tops the list.

Thanks for reading!