This American company Amazon was founded by the global billionaire Jeff Bezos during the year 1994. Since its start, this company witnessed a lot of suffering in the beginning. Still, by the year 2010, the company began to progress and recovery until it reached this position during the current time.
Amazon was listed on the American Nasdaq Stock Exchange, which specializes in listing technology companies, in 1997.
Amazon’s e-commerce company offers the ability to ship any product through it to all countries of the world in a short time. It also has many branches in different countries of the world to serve all people in different countries of the world.
After 27 years, Jeff Bezos will step down as CEO of Amazon later this year.
Over the past several months, Amazon has seen an increase in demand as the coronavirus outbreak has forced people to shop online more than ever. As Amazon shares reached new highs, Bezos’ net worth jumped to more than $ 194 billion.
But this success was not achieved overnight. Bezos began his career in the hedge fund world in the 1990s, then left a simple job to start his own company.
How did he start his life?
Jeff Bezos’ mother, Jackie, was a teenager when she gave birth to him in January 1964, married to Cuban immigrant Miguel Bezos, who adopted Jeff.
Jeff did not know that Miguel was not his birth father until he was ten years old, while his father did not realize that Jeff became the world’s wealthiest person after his separation from his mother when he was four years old.
Bezos attended Princeton University and majored in computer science. After graduating, he turned down job offers from Intel and Bell Labs to join a startup called Fitel.
After that, he got a job at the D.E. hedge fund. Shaw. He became Senior Vice President just four years later, during which he married his ex-wife Mackenzie Tuttle in 1993, and they had four children. According to what was reported by “Business Insider” and seen by “Al-Arabiya.net.”
Amazon idea
In 1994, Bezos read that the internet had grown 2,300% in one year. The number stunned him, and he decided he needed to find a way to take advantage of his rapid growth. He made a list of 20 potential products to sell online and decided books are the best option.
Bezos decided to leave Dr. Shaw even though he had a great job. His company boss, David Shaw, tried to persuade Bezos to stay. But Bezos was already bent on starting his own company – he felt he would instead try and fail at a startup than never try.
He later said, “I knew that I had very much regrets not participating in this thing called the Internet, which I thought would be a revolutionary event.” “When I thought about it this way … it was straightforward to make a decision.”
Bezos started Amazon.com in a garage. In the early days, the bell would ring in the office every time someone made a purchase, and everyone would gather to see if anyone knew the customer. It only took a few weeks before it rang so often, and they had to stop it.
In the first month of its launch, Amazon sold the books to people in all 50 states and 45 different countries. And it continued to grow: Amazon went public on May 15, 1997.
When the dot-com crash came, analysts called the company “Amazon. bomb”. But it weathered the storm and ended up becoming one of the few startups not wiped out by the internet crash.
Uncharted opportunities
In 1998, Bezos became one of the first investors in “Google,” as he invested $ 250,000, which was equal to about 3.3 million shares when the company went public in 2004. The value of those shares may be equivalent to billions today, but Bezos did not mention Whether it holds any of its shares after the initial public offering.
Now, more than 20 years after it went public, Amazon has a market cap of over $ 1.56 trillion.
In August 2017, Whole Foods was acquired by Amazon for $ 13.7 billion. Almost a month after, he has crowned the richest man in the world for the first time, surpassing Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose fortune at the time was more than $ 90 billion.
Bezos isn’t actually getting paid relatively high despite his high net worth: his annual salary is as high as $ 81,840.
Amazon – Tremendous growth
From its initial public offering price to Tuesday’s close, Amazon shares rose 225.233% under Bezos’ management, raising its market value to $ 1.7 trillion.
Meanwhile, Bezos enjoyed equally colossal gains: his net worth was $ 194.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
A large part of Bezos’ fortune comes from Amazon stocks, as he owns 53.2 million shares or 10.6% of the outstanding shares.
Since 1997, Amazon’s revenue has grown from $ 148 million in the fiscal year 1997 to $ 386 billion in the fiscal year 2020, while the company has also climbed into the Fortune 500 ranks – from its debut at number 492 in 2002 to number two in 2020.
The most expensive divorce in the world
In January 2019, Bezos and his 25-year-old novelist wife MacKenzie Bezos announced their divorce. “As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and experimental separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our common life as friends,” the couple wrote in the statement. “If we knew that we would separate after 25 years, we would do it again.”
Shortly after the Bezos couple announced their divorce in January, news broke that Bezos was dating T.V. presenter and pilot Lauren Sanchez.
At the time, the National Enquirer said it had conducted a four-month investigation into Bezos and Sanchez’s relationship and obtained candid texts and photos sent to each other.
MacKenzie has held more than $ 35 billion in Amazon stocks, making her one of the world’s richest women.
During the coronavirus outbreak, Amazon has seen an increase in demand as more people have been forced to shop online. Amazon created more jobs and raised workers’ wages, but Bezos and the company faced scrutiny over worker safety during the outbreak.
The company also faces antitrust concerns, particularly its practices when it comes to third-party sellers on its platform. Bezos and other senior executives will testify before Congress at the end of July.
In recent weeks, both Bezos and Tesla founder Elon Musk has seen their net worth increase. The poles have capsized to claim the world’s richest person’s position, even though Bezos appears to remain at the top with a fortune of $ 194.8 billion.
