[160] Journalist Walt Mossberg dubbed the idea that someone who cannot tolerate criticism or critique shouldn't do anything new or interesting "The Bezos Principle". [121][122], Bezos also supports philanthropic efforts through direct donations and non-profit projects funded by Bezos Expeditions. [202] When the 2017 list was issued, Bezos's net worth was registered at $72.8billion, adding $27.6billion from the previous year. Overtime's basketball league offers $100K salaries to teen players. He believes that work and home life are interconnected, informing and calibrating each other. Jeffs mother and father were was only 17 and 19 when he was born. With a net worth of US$128 billion as of February 2023, Bezos is the third-wealthiest person in the world and was the wealthiest from 2017 to 2021 according to both Bloomberg's Billionaires Index and Forbes. "We believe this is just the tip of the iceberg, as we develop new ways for Overtime to engage with and entertain the next generation of athletes and fans.". That shouldn't be an issue for Bezos, who with a net worth of $117.8 billion is one of the world's wealthiest people. [253] He had lobbied Paramount for the role apropos of Alexa and his personal/professional interest in speech recognition. [169][170], Bezos first became a millionaire in 1997 after raising $54million through Amazon's initial public offering (IPO). But Soon, the F.A.A. [264][265][266][267], In 2014, Amazon won a bid for a cloud computing contract with the CIA valued at $600million. [143] Additionally, Bezos reportedly pitted Amazon teams against each other, and once declined to give Amazon employees city bus passes in order to discourage them from leaving the office. At all. [45][51] Three years after Bezos founded Amazon, he took it public with an initial public offering (IPO). A Division of NBCUniversal. TheAthletic.com also reports that Bezos has been prevented from bidding on the team He has also supported Democrats U.S. representative John Conyers, as well as Patrick Leahy and Republican Spencer Abraham, U.S. senators serving on committees dealing with Internet-related issues. Jeff Bezos is currently the world's second-richest man, so purchasing an NFL (National Football League) franchise wouldn't be too tall a task for the billionaire. Who Will Win? What benefit would Bezos bring the league? But if OTE players do not pursue a professional career, OTE will provide an additional $100,000 for college tuition. Entrepreneur and world-renowned e-commerce pioneer Jeff Bezos is something of a household name these days. [132][133] Journalist Mark O'Connell criticized Bezos's relentless customer focus as "very small" in terms of impact on humanity as a whole,[134] a sentiment technologist Tim O'Reilly agreed with. Since that report from November 2019, Bezos' ties with the NFL have only grown. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was reported that Bezos's fortune had grown by $24 billion, citing a surge in demand from households on lockdown shopping on Amazon. Bezos became D. E. Shaw's fourth senior vice-president by age 30. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was a smart and enterprising kid, as Brad Stone writes in his 2013 book "The Everything Store." ", "Amazon will have a new CEO as Jeff Bezos transitions to executive chair later this year", "Jeff Bezos and brother to fly to space in Blue Origin flight", "Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen reach edge of space, return safely on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket", "Jeff Bezos's single teen mom brought him to night school with her when he was a baby", Why Some Locals Are Skeptical About Jeff Bezos' Free Preschool Near Seattle, "At Last, Jeff Bezos Offers a Hint of His Philanthropic Plans", "Jeff Bezos just sold $534million worth of Amazon stock", "Biography and Video Interview of Jeff Bezos at Academy of Achievement", "Jeff Bezos: A rocket launched from Miami's Palmetto High", "Amazon.com's Bezos invests in space travel, time", "How Amazon's Jeff Bezos went from the son of a teen mom to the richest person in the world", "Top Executive Profiles Jeffrey P. Bezos", "MacKenzie Bezos and the Myth of the Lone Genius Founder", "Who's Writing the Book on Web Business? Bezos was a multi-billionaire who drove a 1996 Honda Accord. [14] The suborbital flight lasted over 10 minutes, reaching a peak altitude of 66.5 miles (107.0km). As CBS Sports reported back in 2019, Bezos spent some time getting close with several owners back then and he had "strong support within the league" to become an owner at that point. Bezos started to wear tailored clothing; he weight trained, pursued a regimented diet and began to freely spend his money. [28] At the time of the post, Bezos's lifetime spending on charitable causes was estimated to be $100million. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. In 2016, Bezos allowed select journalists to visit, tour, and photograph his facility. Does Jeff Bezos Own a Sports Team? From being spotted at the Super Bowl to sharing drinks with NFL team owners, Jeff Bezos seems to love sports, but does he own his own team? No, Jeff Bezos does not own a sports team. Nonetheless, he certainly has enough money to buy a sports team with the fortune he has accumulated from Amazon. [292] As part of this announcement, he committed to establishing the "Day 1 Families Fund" to finance "night shelters and day care centers for homeless families" and the "Day 1 Academies Fund" for early childhood education. [131], Journalist Nellie Bowles of The New York Times has described the public persona and personality of Bezos as that of "a brilliant but mysterious and coldblooded corporate titan". [249] Public records, family history, and biographical details suggest that both were raised under some form of Christianity. ", "Why Trump went after Bezos: Two billionaires across a cultural divide", "9 Shocking Anecdotes That Reveal Jeff Bezos's Cutthroat Management Style", "How Jeff Bezos Became a Power Beyond Amazon", "Guess How Many Pillsbury Biscuits Jeff Bezos Used to Eat Daily", "How Amazon Got Swole Just Like CEO Jeff Bezos", "Jeff Bezos: The man who turned Amazon into an empire", "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos stuns everyone with his macho look, Twitter users compare him with The Rock, VinDiesel", "Jeff Bezos's latest sideline has lots of people comparing him to a comic-book supervillain", "Jeff Bezos, Who Is Not A Super-Villain, Is Building A Giant Clock Inside A Mountain, Because He's NOT A Super-Villain", "On SNL, a bald Steve Carell plays Jeff Bezos and won't stop trolling Trump", "Amazon's Jeff Bezos Wins ITUC's World's Worst Boss Poll", "The Best-Performing CEOs in the World, 2019", "For Bezos, Now World's Richest, Philanthropy Is 'Saved for Later', "Amazon launches a scathing response to Times story", "Jeff Bezos responds to 'New York Times' report on Amazon's workplace", "This is the Jeff Bezos playbook for preventing Amazon's demise", "Amazon's Bezos could teach large companies a thing or two about strategy", "What Amazon's Jeff Bezos thinks about Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker", "A day in the life of the richest person in history, Jeff Bezos who made $6.44billion in one day and still washes the dishes after dinner", "This is Jeff Bezos' 3-question test for new Amazon employees", "Kevin's Week in Tech: Jeff Bezos Reminds Tech Who's Boss", "5 key business lessons from Amazon's Jeff Bezos", "What Makes Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Such a Visionary Leader", "Jeff Bezos keeps his Amazon email address public here's why", "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explains his famous one-character emails, known to strike fear in manager's hearts", "Forum on Leadership: Conversation with Jeff Bezos", "Jeffrey Preston Bezos: 1999 Person of the year", "America's Best Leaders: Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com.com CEO", "April 22: Amazon.com Founder Jeff Bezos to Speak at Carnegie Mellon Business School and Computer Science Diploma Ceremonies", "Charging ahead: e-book design and popularity win Kindle creators Innovation Award", "Amazon's Jeff Bezos: The ultimate disrupter", "Jeff Bezos on nuclear reactors in space, the lack of bacon on Mars and humanity's destiny in the solar system", "National Academy of Engineering Elects 83 Members and 16 Foreign Members", "Jeff Bezos gets a kick out of winning the first Buzz Aldrin Space Innovation Award", "Jeff Bezos responded to reports of poor working conditions at Amazon here's what he said", "Jeff Bezos: The World's 100 Most Influential People", "Emmanuel Macron criticised for giving Lgion d'honneur to Jeff Bezos", "The Age When 17 Self-Made Billionaires Earned Their First Million", "Jeff Bezos' Net Worth Rises $1.4 Billion on Rumors of 3-D Amazon Smartphone", "Jeff Bezos Just Gained $7 Billion in an Hour to Become World's Fifth Richest", "The Full List of Every American Billionaire 2016", "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Net Worth Hits Record High As Fortune Jumps $2.6 Billion", "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Is the Richest Person in the World Again", "Forbes 2017 Billionaires List: Meet The Richest People on the Planet", "Jeff Bezos Made $6.2 Billion in 5 Minutes and Became the World's Richest Person (How Was Your Thursday? Overtime is a media company that distributes original sports content on social media outlets, including Snapchat, YouTube and Facebook. Bezos founded the aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company Blue Origin in 2000. Bezos not only invested in the real estate startup's seed round in 2021, but he doubled down on that investment during the company's series A last year. [104] Since 2016, Bezos has spoken more freely about his hopes to colonize the solar system, and has been selling US$1 billion in Amazon stock each year to capitalize Blue Origin in an effort to support this endeavor. The first centibillionaire on the Forbes wealth index,[8] Bezos was named the "richest man in modern history" after his net worth increased to $150billion in July 2018. For other people with the surname, see, Wealthiest people in the United States by state, All currency figures expressed in the United States dollar (US$) in, Many calculations of Bezos's wealth during the late 2010s were not, Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, Heinlein Prize for Advances in Space Commercialization, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors, 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, "Riding the Wild, Perilous Waters of Amazone.com", "Jeff Bezos Is Getting Astronaut Wings. As CBS Sports reported back in 2019, Bezos spent some time getting close with several owners back then and he had "strong support within the league" to become an owner at that point. [306], Bezos Academy is a group of tuition-free preschools for students from low-income families, which was created by Bezos, and which operate in a manner similar to the Montessori method. [71], In March 2018, Bezos dispatched Amit Agarwal, Amazon's global senior vice president, to India with $5.5billion to localize operations throughout the company's supply chain routes. [27] Jeff would later purchase this ranch and expand it from 25,000 acres (10,117ha) to 300,000 acres (121,406ha). On Friday night, the New York Postreported that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been benched from bidding on the team. [41][42], After Bezos graduated from college in 1986, he was offered jobs at Intel, Bell Labs, and Andersen Consulting, among others. Author of Book on Amazon", "What Is Jeff Bezos's Religion? [45][246] In 1994, they moved across the country to Seattle, Washington, where Bezos founded Amazon. The hour glass appears to be running out on The company also and sells apparel with its logos and branding. [79] 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. Although the crash was viewed as a setback, news outlets noted how far the company went from its founding-to-date in advancing spaceflight. WebJeff Bezos childhood. [51] At the time, website listings were alphabetized, so a name starting with "A" would appear sooner when customers conducted online searches. [203] Bezos was officially ranked as the third-wealthiest person in the world, up from the 5th spot in 2016. [57] In 2002, Bezos led Amazon to launch Amazon Web Services, which compiled data from weather channels and website traffic. Bezos rose to be the 5th richest person in the world hours before market close; he gained $7billion in one hour. [274], In 2019, a political action committee linked to Bezos spent over $1million in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the reelection bid of Seattle city council member and activist Kshama Sawant. More significantly, Perez reports that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has yet to make a bid. The hour glass appears to be running out on Snyder's ownership of the Commanders. [262], After the 2016 presidential election, Bezos was invited to join Donald Trump's Defense Innovation Advisory Board, an advisory council to improve the technology used by the Defense Department. Overtime said it will use a portion of the $80 million to help pay for salaries of players and staff, support league start-up costs, invest in the NFT sector and enhance its app. What would you do if your favorite TV show was CANCELED?! [80] 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? [114] After a surge in online readership in 2016, the paper was profitable for the first time since Bezos made the purchase in 2013. [45][43], In late 1993, Bezos read that the Internet was growing at a rate of 2300% a year and decided to establish an online bookstore. Billionaire Tim Koch has always loved adventure, from riding horses to exploring the Initially operating out of his garage, the companys first annual revenue was $510,000. As of now, players who join are not eligible for collegiate-level play. [230], In February 2020, Bezos purchased the Warner Estate from David Geffen for $165 million,[231][232] a record price paid for a residence in the Los Angeles area. As Commanders owner Daniel Snyder continues to ponder selling the team, unless he isnt, the reports regarding the involvement of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are covering all bases. [39], Bezos portrayed a Starfleet official in the 2016 movie Star Trek Beyond, and joined the cast and crew at a San Diego Comic-Con screening. [28] Multiple opinion columnists responded by asking Bezos to pay higher wages to Amazon warehouse workers. [119] Bezos is involved in the healthcare sector, which includes investments in Unity Biotechnology, GRAIL, Juno Therapeutics, and Zocdoc. However, Bezos was not included in that stage of the bidding. [260] In 2012, he donated to Amazon's political action committee (PAC),[260] which has given $56,000 and $74,500 to Democrats and Republicans, respectively. [233], Bezos is the owner of the Y721, a luxury superyacht estimated to cost more than $500,000,000. [289][290] A year later in June, he tweeted that he would announce two philanthropic foci by the end of summer 2018. )", "America produced the largest number of billionaires in the world", "Jeff Bezos moves to top spot on Forbes' annual billionaires list", "Here's Why Jeff Bezos Is Not Truly The Richest Person in History", "Jeff Bezos Had a Record-Breaking One-Year Net Worth Jump", "Forbes Billionaires 2018: Meet The Richest People on the Planet", "Jeff Bezos world's first centibillionaire: Amazon boss' journey to beat Bill Gates to the top of Forbeslist", "Jeff Bezos Is Worth $112 Billion, Overtaking Bill Gates as the Richest Man in the World", "Bezos' Billions: The Wealth of a 'Centi-Billionaire', "Jeff Bezos Is Making an Insane $230,000 a Minute Right Now", "Here's How Much Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Would Be Worth if He Never Sold a Single Share", "Jeff Bezos is rich enough to buy many of the world's stock markets outright", "Is Jeff Bezos's Massive Wealth Becoming a Problem? His wealth surpassed $100billion 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 $112billion. Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) October 1, 2021 Since New Worlds launch on Tuesday , it has managed to reach a concurrent player count of over 800,000 players, Born in Albuquerque and raised in Houston and Miami, Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986. Jeff Bezos plays games here and there but you wouldnt [92] Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. This is the lowdown on Amazons The Expanse. [62][263] Trump has repeatedly attacked Bezos via Twitter, accused Bezos of avoiding corporate taxes, gaining undue political influence, and undermining his presidency by spreading "fake news". [37] In 1986, he graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a 4.2 GPA and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree (B.S.E.) Overtime raised $80 million in a Series C with investors including Bezos Expeditions, Drake and NBA stars including Devin Booker, Trae Young and Klay Thompson. Teds grandfather had immigrated from now Denmark to Chicago around 1900. Subsequently, National Enquirer revealed that Bezos had an affair with media personality Lauren Snchez; the affair with Sanchez had lasted for months. As journalist Brad Stone revealed in his book The Everything Store, Bezos issued remarks to his employees such as "I'm sorry, did I take my stupid pills today? Amazon went public in Investors in OTE include Portland Trail Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony, Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Nonetheless, he certainly has enough money to buy a sports team with the fortune he has accumulated from Amazon. [100] Later in November, Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle successfully rocketed into space and reached its planned test altitude of 329,839 feet (100.5 kilometers) before executing a vertical landing back at the launch site in West Texas. Billionaire Amazon and Washington Post Owner Jeff Bezos has reportedly come up short in his bid to buy the Washington Commanders football team. Jeff Bezos once tried to buy the Seattle Seahawks, even when they werent selling. "I don't want to drag anybody around," he said . [271][272] On July 6, 2021, the Pentagon cancelled the JEDI contract with Microsoft, citing that "due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs. [213] The Motley Fool estimated that if Bezos had not sold any of his shares from its original public offering in 1997, his net worth would sit at $181billion in 2018. [284] In 2013, he pledged $500,000 to Worldreader, a non-profit founded by a former Amazon employee. Jeff Bezos is a gamer if you count flying rockets into space, co-founder of Amazon-owned Twitch says. [9] In August 2020, according to Forbes, he had a net worth exceeding $200billion. [235] Bezos and the newspaper's editorial board have dismissed accusations that he unfairly controlled the paper's content and Bezos maintains the paper's independence. Whats more, the report also said that [293][294], In January 2018, Bezos made a $33million donation to TheDream.US, a college scholarship fund for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors. [270] In November 2019, when the contract was awarded to Microsoft instead, Amazon filed a lawsuit with allegations that the bidding process was biased. "[82] 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. Perez of FrontOfficeSports.com reports that Bezos remains in the mix. WebFor the years he did pay federal income taxes between 2006 and 2018, Bezos paid a total of about $1.4 billion on a reported income of $6.5 billion, or a rate of about 21.5%. [90] Bezos has long expressed an interest in space travel and the development of human life in the Solar System. [24] Jeff attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade. Sports media company Overtime has secured an $80 million fundraising round with investors including Jeff Bezos' investment firm, global entertainer Drake, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and several National Basketball Association players. Bezos affinity for the Seahawks goes back to 2019 when he attempted to woo the owners into selling the franchise to him. [11] On July 5, 2021, Bezos stepped down as the CEO and President of Amazon and transferred to the role of executive chairman; Andy Jassy, the chief of Amazon's cloud computing division,[12][13] succeeded Bezos as the CEO and President of Amazon. [162] When interviewing candidates for jobs at Amazon, he has stated he considers three inquiries: can he admire the person, can the person raise the common standard, and under what circumstances could the person become exemplary. [186] His net worth decreased to $6.1billion a year later, a 40.5% drop. [68] On February 1, 2018, Amazon reported its highest ever profit with quarterly earnings of $2billion. [227], In June 2019, Bezos purchased three adjoining apartments overlooking Madison Square Park in Manhattan, including a penthouse, for a combined total of US$80million, making this one of the most expensive real estate purchases within New York City in 2019. ", and "Why are you ruining my life?". [39] To push Amazon forward, Bezos developed the mantra "Get Big Fast", establishing the company's need to scale its operations to produce market dominance. Jeffrey Preston Bezos (/bezos/ BAY-zohss;[2] n Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently said he plans to give away the majority of his fortune. [275], On November 22, 2021, Jeff Bezos donated $100million to the Obama Foundation to "help expand the scope of programming that reaches emerging leaders", and requested the Obama Presidential Center's plaza to be named after John Lewis. [84] On October 2, 2018, Bezos announced a company-wide wage increase, which Sanders applauded. Changing His Eating Habits Turned Out To Be The Biggest Change. WebAmerican entrepreneur Jeff Bezos played a key role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com, Inc., an online retailer, Web services provider, and manufacturer of electronic book readers. [36] His 1982 high school valedictorian senior graduation speech was followed up with a Miami Herald interview in which he expressed an interest to build and develop hotels, amusement parks, and colonies for human beings who were in orbit. [55] Although Amazon was originally an online bookstore, Bezos had always planned to expand to other products. [216] On July 17, 2018, he was designated the "wealthiest person in modern history"[c] by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index,[219] Fortune,[220] MarketWatch,[221] The Wall Street Journal,[222] and Forbes. This venture, later named Haven, is expected to be a partnership between Amazon, JPMorgan, and Berkshire Hathaway. It wasn't until 1998, a year after Amazon became a public company, that Bezos became a billionaire. WebOn Feb 21st, both Jones' jet and Bezos' jet landed at Princess Juliana Airport on the Island of St. Martin. [251][252] All survived; Bezos sustained only minor injuries and was discharged from a local hospital the same day. [154][28] Bezos has been known to publicly contest claims made in critical articles, as exemplified in 2015 when he sent a memo to employees denouncing a New York Times piece. [192][193] His wealth rose by 85.2% in 2010, leaving him with $12.6billion. The previous record high price of $150 million was paid by Lachlan Murdoch for the Chartwell Mansion. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon. That shouldn't be an issue for Bezos, who with a net worth of $117.8 billion is one of the world's wealthiest people. [26] Lawrence retired early to his family's ranch near Cotulla, Texas, where Jeff would spend many summers in his youth. Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and dissident was employed as a writer at the Washington Post, owned by Bezos. [124][125] In 2013, Bezos Expeditions funded the recovery of two Saturn V first-stage Rocketdyne F-1 engines from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, Rodgers insists he won't "drag'' out the decision about when and where and why and if he'll play in 2023. [283], Bezos donated to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center several times between 2009 and 2017. With a net worth of US$128 billion as of February 2023, Bezos is the third-wealthiest person in the world and was the wealthiest from 2017 to 2021 according to both Bloomberg's Billionaires Index and Forbes.[5][6]. [28][29] Jeff displayed scientific interests and technological proficiency and once rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room. [10] In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, his wealth grew by approximately $24billion. Khashoggi was killed in late 2018, in Turkey's Saudi consulate for his critical stance and journalism against the Saudi government and its leader. The league and its Bezos founded Amazon in late 1994, on a cross-country road trip from New York City to Seattle. The company began as an online bookstore and has since expanded to a wide variety of other e-commerce products and services, including video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. [47][48] With Bezos at the helm and Scott taking an integral role in its operationwriting checks, keeping track of the books, and negotiating the company's first freight contractsthe foundation was laid for this garage-run operation to grow exponentially. Meanwhile, Rodgers insists he won't "drag'' out the decision about when and where and why and if he'll play in 2023. His one line consisted of a response to an alien in distress: "Speak Normally." Altos Labs is a generously funded biotechnology company dedicated to harnessing cellular reprogramming to develop longevity therapeutics. The Amazon CEO Keeps His Beliefs to Himself", "What we know, and don't know, about Jeff Bezos' religious beliefs", "Amazon Chief Survives Helicopter Crash in Texas", "Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reveals Star Trek Beyond alien cameo", "Jeff Bezos, long known for guarding his privacy, faces his most public and personal crisis", "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and wife MacKenzie to divorce after 25 years of marriage", "Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos are getting divorced after 25 years of marriage", "Jeff Bezos to keep 75 percent of couple's Amazon stock after finalizing divorce", "Amazon's Jeff Bezos, wife, make $2.5million donation for gay marriage", "Amazon.com Contributions to Federal Candidates, 2012 cycles", "How to Understand Donald Trump's #AmazonWashingtonPost Tweet in 3 Easy Steps", "Slammed by Trump, Amazon's Jeff Bezos Chooses Silence", "Why Jeff Bezos Is Dumping Cash into Trump's Swamp", "Donald Trump called out Jeff Bezos on Twitter. Jeff himself revealed that before [261] Bezos donated $100,000 towards a movement against a Washington state income tax in 2010 for "top earners". Shares of the company were only $7 on average that year. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox. [188] He lost $500million the following year, which brought his net worth down to $1.5billion. Shaw in 1994 and moved to Washington State to start Amazon as an Internet bookstore. [48][53][54] He warned many early investors that there was a 70% chance that Amazon would fail or go bankrupt. The company formally launched on July 16, 1995. "[254] Bezos's family corporation Zefram LLC is named after Zefram Cochrane, a character from Star Trek. Perez of FrontOfficeSports.com reports that no bid exceeded $6.3 billion. Cry? That $250,000 investment resulted in 3.3million shares of Google stock, worth about $3.1billion in 2017. [260] Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos have supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, and in 2012 contributed $2.5million to Washington United for Marriage, a group supporting a yes vote on Washington Referendum 74, which affirmed a same-sex marriage law enacted in the state. [86], In February 2021, Bezos announced that in the third quarter of 2021 he would step down from his role as CEO of Amazon to become the Executive Chairman of the Amazon Board.