Hello Guys, Today we will discuss about the lifestyle of the
richest man alive on earth. So lets start
Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston Bezos born in January 12, 1964 Albuquerque,
New Mexico, United States. He is an American internet entrepreneur, industrialist,
media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, CEO, and
president of the multi-national technology company Amazon. The first centi-billionaire
on the Forbes wealth index, Bezos has been the world's richest person since
2017 and was named the "richest man in modern history" after his net
worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018.
Early Life and Career
While still in high school, Bezos developed the Dream
Institute, a centre that promoted creative thinking in young students. After
graduating (1986) summa cum laude from Princeton University with degrees in
electrical engineering and computer science, he undertook a series of jobs
before joining the New York investment bank D.E. Shaw & Co. in 1990. Soon
named senior vice president—the firm’s youngest—Bezos was in charge of
examining the investment possibilities of the Internet. Its enormous
potential—Web usage was growing by more than 2,000 percent a year—sparked his
entrepreneurial imagination. In 1994 he quit D.E. Shaw and moved to Seattle,
Washington, to open a virtual bookstore. Working out of his garage with a
handful of employees, Bezos began developing the software for the site. Named
after the South American river, Amazon sold its first book in July 1995.
Amazon
In late 1993, Bezos decided to establish an online
bookstore. He left his job at D. E. Shaw and founded Amazon in his garage on
July 5, 1994, after writing its business plan on a cross-country drive from New
York City to Seattle. Bezos initially named his new company Cadabra but later
changed the name to Amazon after the Amazon River in South America, in part
because the name begins with the letter A, which is at the beginning of the
alphabet. He accepted an estimated $300,000 from his parents and invested in
Amazon. He warned many early investors that there was a 70% chance that Amazon
would fail or go bankrupt. Although Amazon was originally an online bookstore,
Bezos had always planned to expand to other products. Three years after Bezos
founded Amazon, he took it public with an initial public offering (IPO). In
response to critical reports from Fortune and Barron's, Bezos maintained that
the growth of the Internet would overtake competition from larger book
retailers such as Borders and Barnes & Noble.
Bezos receives the James Smithson Bicentennial medal in 2016
for his work with Amazon.
In 1998, Bezos diversified into the online sale of music and
video, and by the end of the year he had expanded the company's products to
include a variety of other consumer goods. Bezos used the $54 million raised
during the company's 1997 equity offering to finance aggressive acquisition of
smaller competitors. In 2000, Bezos borrowed $2 billion from banks, as its cash
balances dipped to only $350 million. In 2002, Bezos led Amazon to launch
Amazon Web Services, which compiled data from weather channels and website
traffic. In late 2002, rapid spending from Amazon caused it financial distress
when revenues stagnated. After the company nearly went bankrupt, he closed
distribution centers and laid off 14% of the Amazon workforce. In 2003, Amazon
rebounded from financial instability and turned a profit of $400 million. In
November 2007, Bezos launched the Amazon Kindle. According to a 2008 Time
profile, Bezos wished to create a device that allowed a "flow state"
in reading similar to the experience of video games. In 2013, Bezos secured a
$600 million contract with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on behalf of
Amazon Web Services. In October of that year, Amazon was recognized as the
largest online shopping retailer in the world.
In May 2016, Bezos sold slightly more than one million
shares of his holdings in the company for $671 million, the largest sum he had
ever raised from selling some of his Amazon stock. On August 4, 2016, Bezos
sold another million of his shares for $756.7 million. A year later, Bezos took
on 130,000 new employees when he ramped up hiring at company distribution
centers. By January 19, 2018, his Amazon stock holdings had appreciated to
slightly over $109 billion; months later he began to sell stock to raise cash
for other enterprises, in particular, Blue Origin. On January 29, 2018, he was
featured in Amazon's Super Bowl commercial. On February 1, 2018, Amazon
reported its highest ever profit with quarterly earnings of $2 billion. Due to
the growth of Alibaba in China, Bezos has often expressed interest in expanding
Amazon into India. On July 27, 2017, Bezos momentarily became the world's
wealthiest person over Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates when his estimated net
worth increased to just over $90 billion. His wealth surpassed $100 billion for
the first time on November 24, 2017, and he was formally designated the
wealthiest person in the world by Forbes on March 6, 2018, with a net worth of
$112 billion.
Bezos in 2010
In March 2018, Bezos dispatched Amit Agarwal, Amazon's
global senior vice president, to India with $5.5 billion to localize operations
throughout the company's supply chain routes. Later in the month, U.S.
President Donald Trump accused Amazon—and Bezos, specifically—of sales tax
avoidance, misusing postal routes, and anti-competitive business practices.
Amazon's share price fell by 9% in response to the President's negative
comments; this reduced Bezos's personal wealth by $10.7 billion.[56] Weeks
later, Bezos recouped his losses when academic reports out of Stanford
University indicated that Trump could do little to regulate Amazon in any
meaningful way. During July 2018, a number of members of the U.S. Congress
called on Bezos to detail the applications of Amazon's face recognition
software, Rekognition. Additionally, statements by the Trump administration, in
favor of overturning the antitrust law known as the Paramount Decree, have been
predicted to help Amazon acquire the Landmark Theaters chain.
Criticism of Amazon's business practices continued in
September 2018 when Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Stop Bad Employers by
Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS) Act and accused Amazon of receiving
corporate welfare. This followed revelations by the non-profit group New Food
Economy which found that one third of Amazon workers in Arizona, and one tenth
of Amazon workers in Pennsylvania and Ohio, relied on food stamps. While
preparing to introduce the bill, Sanders opined: "Instead of attempting to
explore Mars or go to the moon, how about Jeff Bezos pays his workers a living
wage?" He later said: "Bezos could play a profound role. If he said
today, nobody who is employed
at Amazon will receive less than a living wage, it would
send a message to every corporation in America." Sanders's efforts
elicited a response from Amazon which pointed to the 130,000 jobs it created in
2017 and called the $28,446 figure for its median salary "misleading"
as it included part-time workers. However, Sanders countered that the companies
targeted by his proposal have placed an increased focus on part-time workers to
escape benefit obligations. On October 2, 2018, Bezos announced a company-wide
wage increase, which Sanders applauded. The American workers who were being
paid the minimum wage had this increased to $15 per hour – a decision that was
interpreted as support for the Fight for $15 movement.
One of the most expensive divorce
MacKenzie Bezos and Jeff Bezos are divorced after 25 years
of marriage.A King County, Washington judge on Friday signed an order
formalizing the separation. That sets the stage for the transfer of some 19.7
million shares of Amazon.com Inc. to MacKenzie’s name. The Bezoses announced
the split in January.That 4% holding is valued at $38.3 billion, enough to
place her 22nd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s
500 richest people. Her former husband, the founder and chief executive officer
of the world’s largest online retailer and web-services company, retains a 12%
stake worth $114.8 billion and remains the world’s wealthiest person.The court
papers formalizing the divorce revealed little else about the terms of the
separation. The couple filed a parenting plan for their children earlier this
week. MacKenzie Bezos, a 49-year-old novelist, said in an April tweet that she
gave Jeff Bezos, 55, all of her interests in the Washington Post and
space-exploration company Blue Origin.She also signed the Giving Pledge in May,
promising to donate more than half of her fortune to philanthropy.
“I won’t wait," she wrote in her pledge. “And I will
keep at it until the safe is empty."
Jeff Bezos, 55, remains the world’s richest person, with a
12% Amazon stake worth $112 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires
Index. He’ll retain other assets, including the Washington Post and
space-exploration company Blue Origin, MacKenzie Bezos, 49, said in an April
tweet.The amounts involved are unprecedented. While Oracle Corp.’s Larry
Ellison has been through multiple divorces, none has affected his stake in the
software maker. Likewise, Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s stake remained
unchanged after he and Anne Wojcicki divorced without fanfare in 2015.
Oil industry magnate Harold Hamm’s separation from Sue Ann
Arnall was far messier. The couple filed for divorce in 2012 after 26 years of
marriage, and their trial two years later ended with Hamm, the chairman and CEO
of Continental Resources Inc., being ordered to pay her $972 million of his
then-estimated $16.1 billion fortune. Arnall later sought to reopen the case
but the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in 2015.The divorce
petition identifies Bellevue, Washington-based Ted Billbe as her lawyer.
Seattle’s Sherri Anderson is the attorney for Jeff Bezos.
Bezos after divorce
Between March and April 2020, amid the pandemic, Amazon said
it hired 175,000 additional workers
In April 2020, Bezos said he would give $100 million to Feed
America, a nonprofit that operates food banks and food pantries across the
country.
Amazon has faced criticism from U.S. senators and the general
public for its treatment of warehouse workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
He divorced his wife MacKenzie in 2019 after 25 years of
marriage and transferred a quarter of his Amazon stake to her.
In 2019, Amazon notched $280.5 billion in revenues and a
record $11.5 billion in net profit.
Bezos owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin, an aerospace
company that is developing rockets for commercial use.
