Tech Billionaires: Jeff Bezos

What do we think of

when we hear the word Amazon today?

Along with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook

Amazon is one of the big five companies

in the U.S tech industry.

It has become one of the most influential companies

in the world, as well as the most valuable brand.

In 2018 it surpassed 100 million subscribers worldwide.

So what did it take to build such a revolutionary business?

Well, it took someone like Jeff Bezos.

The American audacious entrepreneur.

One of the world's richest business leaders,

and founder of the giant tech company,

and the world's largest marketplace.

As of February, 2021 he was reported to be

the second richest person in the world.

With an estimated worth of $185 billion after Elon Musk.

What makes a smart business?

Start with the customer and work backwards?

Are Bezos' words.

Today, the impact on online retail is greater

than it's ever been before.

Take a journey into how Bezos built the giant

that has changed the world.

And shapes our culture and society today.

They are masterminds, ambitious, competitive, and ruthless.

Not afraid of failure.

Dedicated to their mission of bettering the world.

Always reaching for excellence.

They lead by example.

Unlike many industries the tech billionaires

are mostly self-made.

It is through their genius

that they revolutionize the industry.

And together they change the world.

Join us in this series.

As we take a look at some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs

in the modern world.

The tech billionaires, Bill Gates, Elon Musk,

Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.

Together they're worth a collective

of more than 900 billion U.S dollars.

They will be remembered in history

as the most influential people of the 21st century.

Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen was born on January 12th, 1964

in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

To a teenage mother Jacqueline

and his biological father, Ted Jorgensen.

When he was born his mother was just 17

and still in high school.

His 18 year old father didn't have much money

and had alcohol issues.

The Jorgensens were married less than a year

before Jacqueline left, taking their infant son with her.

When Bezos was four years old

his mother remarried Miguel Bezos.

A Cuban refugee who had fled an oppressive regime

and who didn't speak a word of English

when he first arrived a few months back.

But with a strong work ethic and determination in life.

He worked his way to University of Albuquerque

to obtain a degree in mechanical engineering.

Which led him to get a job later on at Exxon,

as an engineer.

Miguel decided to adopt Jeff after the wedding

and took the responsibility to raise him.

His surname was then changed to Bezos.

The family then moved to Houston, Texas,

where Jeff spent most of his childhood.

Much of Jeff Bezos drive and ambition

likely came from his new father.

He's been a constant inspiration for him.

Jeff was a gifted child.

It had been said that at the age of only three,

tired of sleeping in a crib, he found a screwdriver

and took the crib apart.

He then moved to Miami with his family as a teenager.

Where he attended Palmetto high school.

He was a brilliant student, got straight A's

and was valedictorian of his class.

Bezos showed early signs of technical proficiencies.

He quickly developed a passion for computers

and excelled at creating software programs.

As an avid young innovator,

he turned his parents' garage into a laboratory

and experimented around his house as a child.

Young Jeff was always inventing something.

Once he invented a solar microwave and even a door buzzer

to keep his siblings out of his room.

It was during high school that he started

his first business, The dream Institute.

An educational summer camp that promoted creative thinking

for young students.

After graduating with honors from high school

he briefly turned to physics.

Before committing to his love for computers.

And he graduated from Princeton University in 1986

with a high distinction in electrical and computer science.

Bezos childhood may have contributed

to his obsession with success.

And maybe it helped him create that drive and ambition

and a relentless need to prove himself.

Being adopted is something that Bezos shares

with two other great internet entrepreneurs.

Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison.

After his graduation at Princeton

he took on various jobs that helped him develop

his entrepreneurial spirit even more.

At 28 Bezos was working for the investment firm

D.E Shaw in Wall Street, Manhattan as a computer specialist.

He soon became the firm's youngest senior vice president.

There he met novelist McKenzie Tuttle

who was a research associate at the firm.

She soon became his wife as the couple married a year later.

They would have four children.

Three sons and a daughter they adopted from China.

During the rise of the internet in the 1990s

Bezos noticed that it was growing at an incredible rate.

More than 2300% a year.

And he saw its enormous potential.

He had never seen anything that grew that fast.

This sparked his imagination

and he embarked on the entrepreneurial path.

His first steps were to research the top 20

mail order companies at the time.

Observing that something was missing,

he saw an opportunity on the horizon.

He decided that an online company could offer

this missing service.

And what was the first best product to sell online?

Books?

Indeed, there were no book mail order companies yet.

In 1994, having had always been an avid reader.

Bezos decided to establish an online bookstore.

Against his parents and even as boss's advice to reconsider,

he left his job at D.E Shaw to start his own company at 30

and decided to leave New York.

At this time, Bill Gates was already dominating the world

of personal computers with Microsoft,

from his hometown of Seattle.

Bezos decided to move there with his wife.

Seems there was plenty of tech talent around.

He saw it as a place of opportunity and new beginnings.

He was aware that most startups don't work,

and wasn't confident and sure of what would happen.

People were saying that the company

would never be profitable.

but Bezos decided to take the leap anyway.

His parents also ended up to support his decision

and invested what they'd saved for retirement

in their sons venture.

It was later amply rewarded.

After writing his business plan on a cross country road trip

from New York City to Seattle,

Bezos and his wife settled into their new home in Bellevue.

And their new home became his office.

He began developing the software for the site

in his garage with a handful of employees.

There was not much investment in the beginning

and Bezos would drive the packages

to the post office himself.

He even had his desk made from doors to save money.

This was one of his main principles, frugality.

We try not to spend money on things

that don't matter to customers.

On July 6th 1995, a few months later after moving

the startup sold its first book

and Bezos new business was launched, Amazon.

Named after the South American biggest river in the world.

And it started in a garage.

With financial and moral support from family and friends.

They started shipping more books.

Sales took off immediately.

By 1996 the company reached $15.7 million in sales.

Within the first few days I knew this was going to be huge.

Bezos told Time Magazine.

It was obvious that we were onto something much bigger

than we'd ever dared to hope.

In 1997, three years after it was founded

Amazon went public with an IPO of $18 per share.

After raising $54 million, Bezos became a millionaire.

At the end of trading day on February, 2020

shares closed at more than $2,000 each.

Making such an investment at his IPO

worth more than 12 million pounds as of May, 2020.

In other words, if you invested in Amazon in its early days

you too would have been a millionaire today.

He had warned many early investors

that there was a 70% chance that Amazon would fail,

or go bankrupt.

But the employees worked hard and Bezos,

even harder to drive them.

The company grew fast into a large worldwide business.

Bezos later claimed Amazon is the earth's biggest bookstore.

Although Amazon was originally an online bookstore

Bezos had always planned to expand to other products.

In 1998, it started selling music and videos.

One day he emailed randomly 1000 selected customers

to see what else they would wanna buy

from the online retailer.