# Digital Media Concepts/Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos, born January 12, 1964 (Age 60), is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. Bezos gained fame and fortune after starting an online bookstore service in 1995, which made technology critics skeptical about its first success. Overtime, this popular website beat out its competitors, soon going public in 1997. Jeff Bezos the famous American technology and retail entrepreneur, and investor.
He was born in Albuquerque and raised in Houston, Texas. Bezos went to the university of Princeton in 1986 and graduated with a electrical engineering and computer science degree. Bezos found amazon.com in the 1994 where he began as online store catering to those in need of books and eventually expanded selling variety of products and services. It is currently to this day the worlds largest internet sales online company.
Bezos branched off in business by the founding of aerospace and blue origin in 2000. He then purchased The Washington Post newspaper in 2013 for $250 million in cash. As of Feb 18,2018 he was announced to be the wealthiest person in the world with an estimated net worth of 121.3 billion dollars just passing up Bill Gates.

## Career

After attending Princeton, Bezos started working on wall street in computer science. He eventually started working on building a network for international trading company called Fitel. After working for so long he wanted to build something for himself and thats when he found Amazon.com. He initially started gathering information and knowledge "Rapid growth and internet use". At the time Bezos had no funds to help start the company, so he had help from his parents retirement fund of 300,000.

## Personal Life

Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to teenage mother, Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen, and father Ted Jorgensen. His love for computers started at an early age, turning his parents garage into his own office. Bezos mother then remarried to Cuban immigrant Mike Bezos when Bezos was at the pure age of four years old. Bezos pursued his interest in computers at Princeton University where he studied computer science and electrical engineering, graduating in 1986. He then met his wife, Mackenzie Tuttle, when they both worked for the investment firm D.E. Shaw on Wall Street. They got married in 1993, and after quitting his job at D.E Shaw, they had moved to Seattle in 1994 (5).

## Net Worth and Assets

As of October 2017, Jeff Bezos had been named the richest person in the world. As of 2018, his net worth adds up to $121.3 billion US dollars. Bezos owns many homes across the US estimated to be worth up to $25 million. He founded the aerospace program, Blue Origin. He has many investments in companies such as Basecamp, Juno Therapeutics, Workday, Air BnB, Uber, and Google.
Aside from programs and homes, Bezos owns vehicles worth up to millions. He owns a $65 million dollar private jet, 2015 Gulfstream G-65OER.
Bezos does not only filter his money to the material items, he is a philanthropist at best. He took many foundations under his wing such as $35 million to Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Teach for America, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, and more under the Bezos Family Foundation.

## Awards and Nominations

** Bezos, sharing a laugh. One might say it is "iconic".Jeff Bezos was noted for winning many awards on behalf of him and Amazon.com. Bezos won the Buzz Aldrin Space Innovation Award, which was created by the famed Apollo 11 moonwalker. Bezo said he would sell billions of dollars worth of Amazon stock each year to put towards Blue Origin space venture (2).
** Actresses and actors won Oscars in 2017 on behalf of Amazon Studios (1).
** Amazon Studios itself had also been nominated for 11 Golden Globes and successfully took home 2 out of the 11 on behalf of Casey Affleck and Billy Bob Thornton (1).

## External Links

Amazon -- His famous website
Blue Origin, Space project by Bezos