Jeff Bezos

Some Lesser Known Facts About Jeff Bezos

• Does Jeff Bezos drink alcohol?: Yes 

• Jeff Bezos is an American business tycoon who is best known for being the founder and CEO of Amazon, a  multinational technology company. A net worth of more than $200 billion (as of April 2021) makes him the richest person on the planet. ^[4]Bloomberg

• When Jeff was born, his mother was just 17 years old and was still in high school.

  

• Jeff’s parents, Jacklyn and Ted, separated just after a year of their marriage.

• When Jeff was just four years old, Jacklyn got married to Miguel “Mike” Bezos, a Cuban who immigrated to the United States alone at the age of 15. After the marriage, he adopted Jeff legally and took the responsibility to raise him.

• After the wedding, the family moved to Houston (Texas) where Jeff spent most of his childhood and developed a close bond with his grandfather.

  

• During his childhood, he developed an interest in computers from his grandfather, Lawrence Preston Gise, who worked as Regional Director at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

  

• From a young age, Jeff started displaying technological proficiencies and scientific interests.

• The young Jeff was always inventing something- hovercraft, a solar cooker, a robot, an electric alarm, etc. Once, he invented an electric alarm to keep his siblings out of his room.

• He was considered a brilliant student at his school and was his high school’s valedictorian.

  

• His first job was with Fitel, a startup telecom company. He worked there for two years. Later, he worked at ‘Bankers Trust’ and ‘D.E. Shaw,’ an investment management firm on Wall Street.

  

• While working at D.E. Shaw, he fell in love with Mackenzie Sheri Tuttle who was his colleague.

  

• In 1994, he quit his job at D.E. Shaw to start Amazon.com. Jeff rented a house and started working from his garage with his first employee, Shel Kaphan.

  

• He named Amazon.com after the mighty South American river, and the arrow in the logo of Amazon indicates that customers can buy anything from a to z on the site.

• In 1999, Jeff Bezos was named “Time Person of the Year.”

• He believes in working with a small team and has devised a rule called the “Two Pizza Rule”: if a team cannot be fed with two pizzas, it’s too large.

  

• He is, in fact, a frugal and showed his frugality early on when he founded Amazon.com from his garage, as he turned a wooden door into a table. Although rather than calling it “frugality,” it should be termed as “creativity.”

  

• He is considered a generous donor too, as he donated $2.5 million for a same-sex marriage cause in Washington when one of his employees, Jennifer Cast, asked only $100,000 for donation.

• In 2003, he almost encountered a fatal accident; when he had a helicopter accident that gave him minor head lacerations.

  

• In 2013, he made headlines when he bought the Washington Post for $250 million. 

• In his childhood, Jeff had an immense interest in aerospace, and in 2000, he realized his dream when he started a Space company “Blue Origin, LLC.” The vision of this company is to bring down the cost of Space travel, so everyone can go into Space.

  

• He made a surprise cameo in the 2016 film ‘Star Trek Beyond.’

  

• In 2018, he was listed first on the Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires.

• In March 2018, he made headlines when he stepped out to take his robotic dog (called SpotMini) for a walk.

  

• An after-dinner ritual that Bezos always adheres to is ‘washing the dishes.’ In an interview, he talked about this ritual and said,
  

  I’m pretty convinced it’s the sexiest thing I do.” ^[5]BUSINESS INSIDER

• When it comes to having a sound sleep, Bezos never misses it and always tries to have an eight-hour sleep. However, he wakes up every morning naturally; without the aid of an alarm clock.

• He is the first person in modern history to accumulate a fortune of over $100 billion.

• Jeff is known for his weird food habits. He was once spotted eating a cooked cockroach.

  

• His brother, Mark Bezos is also into philanthropy and has switched his career from advertising to working for the New York-based anti-poverty organization, Robin Hood. Mark is also a volunteer firefighter.

  

• On June 7, 2021, he took to Instagram to announce that he would fly to space on July 20, 2021, along with his brother, Mark, on Blue Origin’s first human flight. In an Instagram post, he wrote,
  

  Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”

• On July 20, 2021, Jeff Bezos, along with three fellow passengers his brother Mark Bezos, female aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and an 18-year-old physics student Oliver Daemen, made a successful journey into space and landed back in West Texas. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket soared from remote West Texas on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing; Mr. Bezos chose this date for its historical significance. The Blue Origin flight went about 107 km high, while Branson’s Virgin Galactic flight reached a height of 86 km. Reportedly, Elon Musk‘s SpaceX Earth Orbit mission promises to go over 300 km up.

  

• On October 11, 2021, he took to Twitter to share the clipping of an American magazine that, back in 1999, had predicted the crash of Amazon stock and called Jeff Bezos a mere “middleman.” The American weekly magazine Barron’s published a story titled “Amazon.bomb” on May 31, 1999, in which it predicted the downfall of Amazon’s stocks amid the rising competition from direct sellers.