Jeffrey Preston Bezos
Born January 12th, 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jeffrey Preston Bezos has lead anything but an ordinary life. His family owned a ranch in Cortulla where Bezos spent most of his summers working with his grandfather. His family later moved to Florida where Bezos showed his ingenuity in science by turning his garage into a laboratory.
While attending Miami Palmetto Senior High School in Florida, Bezos discovered his love for computers. Upon graduation from high school, Bezos continued his education at Princeton, where he began studying physics, but reverted to his first love and graduated with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering.
Armed with a degree and his passion for computers, Bezos made his way to New York to work with the start up company, FITEL. While there, he built a network to conduct international trade. Bezos then moved to Banker’s Trust Company where he oversaw and led the development of the company’s computer systems. Bezos rose quickly within Banker’s Trust and in 1990, he became the company’s youngest Vice President.
Bezos continued to pursue new challenges and in 1990, he went to work for E.D. Shaw & Co, a company that specialized in applying computer science to the stock market. Bezos rose quickly in the ranks of E.D. Shawn & Co. with the creation of a very technically sophisticated hedge fund on Wall Street. Due to his hard work, Bezos was promoted to Senior Vice President, again the youngest in the company.
While working at E.D. Shaw & Co., Bezos, with great interest, watched the growth the internet’s popularity. He saw the beginning of a new era of commerce conducted over the internet, and he wanted to be part of it. He pitched the idea of selling books on the internet to E.D. Shaw & Co., but was told it would never work. Bezos then took a risk and moved his family to Seattle to start his new internet business.
Bezos started Amazon on July 16, 1995. Amazon was headquartered in his house and deployed no advertising campaigns. Despite its humble beginnings, within the first 30 days, Amazon sold books in all 50 states and in 45 foreign countries.
Amazon is now a multi billion dollar company and has expanded into music, CD, toys, videos, clothing and electronics. The company made it through the internet stock market bubble burst and continues to grow and expand into new areas of e- commerce. Bezos remains Chairman, CEO, and President of Amazon, as well as founder of Blue Origins, a company that creates reusable rocket ships. In 1999, Bezos was named Times, Person of the Year.