Claim: Jeff Bezos initiated Blue Origin in 2000.

Jeff Bezos -LRB- -LSB- ˈbeɪzoʊs -RSB- born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen ; January 12 , 1964 -RRB- is an American technology and retail entrepreneur , investor , and philanthropist who is best known as the founder , chairman , and chief executive officer of Amazon.com , which is the world 's largest online shopping retailer . The company began as an Internet merchant of books and expanded to a wide variety of products and services , most recently video streaming and audio streaming . Amazon.com is currently the world 's largest Internet sales company on the World Wide Web , as well as being the world 's largest provider of cloud infrastructure services , through its Amazon Web Services arm .   Bezos 's other diversified business interests include aerospace and newspapers . He is the founder and manufacturer of Blue Origin -LRB- founded in 2000 -RRB- with test flights to space which started in 2015 , and plans for commercial suborbital human spaceflight beginning in 2018 . In 2013 , Bezos purchased The Washington Post newspaper . A number of other business investments are managed through Bezos Expeditions .   With an estimated net worth of US$ 82 billion as of May 2017 , Bezos is currently the third-richest person in the world , just behind Bill Gates and Amancio Ortega in first and second places , and just ahead of Warren Buffett in fourth place . His rise to this position occurred after Amazon registered a 67 % jump in share price .