(Baonghean.vn) - Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon or owner of 'The Everything Store', who on July 27 surpassed Bill Gates in a few hours to become the richest person in the world.
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| Jeff Bezos' real name is Jeffrey Preston Jorgensenlit, born on January 12, 1964, to Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen and Ted Jorgensen. The Amazon founder's parents married when Jackie was 16 and Ted was 18, both high school students. They quickly divorced after 1 year of marriage. Jacklyn Gise then married another man named Miguel Mike Benzos, an immigrant from Cuba, who officially adopted Jeff Bezos when he was 4 years old. It is known that Jeff learned that Mike was not his biological father when he was 10 years old. |
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| Since childhood, Jeff was passionate about repairing household appliances and learning how these things work. Bezos even used a screwdriver and got out of his crib because he wanted to sleep in bed. Jeff's childhood was always about exploring and inventing something with his passion. He invented a solar cooker, a hovercraft, a robot, an electric alarm, an alarm to prevent his sisters from entering his room. |
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| When Jeff was four, his mother told him about his biological father, who worked in a circus. Later, in an interview with Brad Stone, Jeff's biological father said he had no idea his son had become a billionaire. |
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| From the ages of 4 to 16, Jeff spent his summers on his grandparents' ranch in Texas, doing things like repairing windmills and castrating bulls. His grandfather, Preston Gise, is said to have been a major inspiration, helping to fuel his passion for knowledge. |
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| In school, Jeff Bezos often told his teachers: “The future of mankind is not on this earth.” As a child, he always wanted to be an aerospace entrepreneur and now he is the owner of a space exploration company called Blue Origin. |
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| After graduating from high school, Bezos went to Princeton University to study computer science. After graduating, he turned down job offers from Intel and research firm Bell Labs to join the startup Fitel. |
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| After leaving Fitel, Bezos and Halsey Minor, who later founded CNET, almost formed a fax messaging startup together. But he ended up working for the hedge fund DE Shaw, becoming a senior vice president there after just four years. |
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| In 1993, he married researcher MacKenzie Tuttle at DE Shaw. Tuttle is now a novelist. A year later, the young couple moved to Seattle, where they started Amazon.com. |
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| Despite a lucrative position at DE Shaw, Jeff decided to quit his job to start his own business. “I took the less safe path to pursue my passion, and I’m proud of that choice,” Bezos said. He believes it’s better to try and fail than never to try at all. |
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| Bezos founded Amazon.com in his garage with a grill. Almost all meetings were held at the Barnes & Noble bookstore next door. In the early days, whenever a customer bought a book, a bell rang in Jeff’s office and all the employees gathered to see if anyone knew the customer. However, after a few weeks, Jeff had to stop this practice because the bell rang too much. |
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| In 1994, shocked to learn that the web market had grown 2,300% in just one year, Jeff decided to capitalize on this rapid growth. The future billionaire immediately came up with a list of 20 products that could be sold online, with books being the top choice. |
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| In its first month of existence, Amazon sold books in all 50 states and in 45 countries around the world. Shortly thereafter, on May 15, 1997, Amazon went public. When the dot-com bubble burst, analysts called Jeff Bezos' company the "Amazon.bomb." However, Amazon was one of the few startups to weather the storm. |
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| Since then, Amazon's stock has continued to rise and it has expanded into almost every product other than books, including home appliances, clothing, food, and even cloud computing services. Jeff Bezos is a boss who always sets very high standards and can drive employees crazy. Rumor has it that he had to hire a leadership expert to help him improve. At Amazon, Jeff banned employees from using PowerPoint for presentations. Instead, he required employees to use 6-page slides to encourage critical thinking on simple problems. |
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| Jeff is also known for creating a “frugal” culture. At Amazon, employees do not receive free food, drinks or massages like at many other technology companies. In 1998, Bezos became one of Google’s earliest investors. He invested $250,000 to buy 3.3 million shares when Google went public in 2004. That amount is now worth $2.2 billion. |
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| Although not much, Jeff also spends some money on social activities. In 2002, he supported 2.5 million USD to protect the law of same-sex marriage in Washington. He also spent 42 million USD and a part of land in Texas to build a thousand-year clock. In 2013, Jeff spent 250 million USD to buy the Washington Post. |
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| Bezos owns many properties, including a plot of land of more than 21,000 m2on Lake Washington in Seattle. In 2007, he also spent $24.5 million to buy a 7-bedroom mansion in Beverly Hills. This mansion has a greenhouse, tennis court, swimming pool... and is near the home of actor Tom Cruise. In January 2017, Jeff bought the Textile Museum, consisting of two adjacent buildings in Washington, DC, and converted it into a residence. Bezos also owns 3 adjacent apartments with an area of over 3,000 square meters.2at Century Tower in New York. |
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| After 20 years on the stock exchange, Amazon now has a market capitalization of 501.5 billion USD. Barclays predicts that Amazon will soon become the first trillion-dollar company. |
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At the beginning of the trading session on July 27, Amazon's stock price increased sharply, causing billionaire Jeff Bezos's fortune to jump to 90.6 billion. The rapid increase in assets helped Jeff Bezos surpass technology tycoon Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world. However, billionaire Jeff Bezos's position as the richest person on the planet only lasted for a few hours. |
Peace
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