Jeff Bezos is an American entrepreneur who is most well known for being the founder and CEO of the extremely popular e-commerce company, Amazon. Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 12, 1964. Bezos was a brilliant child growing up and went to Princeton University where he graduated in 1986. Following his graduation, Bezos got many jobs in the finance sector at multiple firms on Wall Street. However, in 1994, Bezos quit his job and risked everything to open an online bookstore on July 5, 1994! This online bookstore turned into what we know today as Amazon and well, the rest is history.
Creator of the largest online shopping market in the world
Jeffrey Preston Bezos was born January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A year later, his parents divorced and since then he has never had contact with his biological father. Three years later, his mother, Jackie Gise, married Michael Bezos, who fled his native Cuba when he was fifteen years old.
Bezos always had a knack for figuring out how things work. In Jeff Bezos: King of Amazon, author Josepha Sherman writes, "From the time he was a toddler, Bezos was busy trying to change his world. He felt he was too old to sleep in a 'baby' crib, so he found a screwdriver and took the crib apart. Instead of getting mad, Bezos's family encouraged him."
Bezos had a younger sister, Christina, and brother, Mark. When the young siblings learned to walk, they loved going into their brother's room because of all the fascinating "toys". To warn him that the children were coming, Jeff attached an alarm to his bedroom door that made a loud buzzing sound when someone entered.
When Jeff was 10 years old he and his family moved to Houston, Texas. It was around this time that Jeff started to display a great interest in science and technology.
As a young child, Bezos was the son of a teen mom, and a not-so-present father. But through that struggle, he was always one of the smartest and most creative in his classes as a child. At age 12, Bezos wanted something called an infinity cube. It was $20, but he could not afford it. He decided to take it upon himself, and bought multiple mirrors and built it himself. At young ages, Bezos made various different toys and tinkered with many things.
At the age of 14, he turned his parents garage into a science and electronics lab for personal use. Was even allowed to rig an electric alarm to keep siblings out of room.
For a summer Bezos got a job at McDonalds, he hated the job and the next summer decided to start his first business in high school. Creating “The Dream Institute” which was an educational camp for younger students from grades four to six.
Bezos spent another high school summer teaching children’s camp with his girlfriend, offering a curriculum that they designed, described as “a mix of science and literature, the future and the past. The kids would read books at the summer camp. Required reading included The Once and Future King, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Lord of the Rings, Dune, Watership Down, Black Beauty, Gulliver’s Travels, Treasure Island, and David Copperfield, along with the plays Our Town and The Matchmaker. The science curriculum ranged from fossil fuels and fission to space colonies and interstellar travel – with a dollop of television and advertising study thrown in for good measure.” The course was for 10 year old’s and 6 kids signed up for the camp.