HAPPY BITHDAY JEFF BEZOS

ABOUT JEFF BEZOS

Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos (/ˈbeɪzoʊs/;^[4] born January 12, 1964) is an American Internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a technology entrepreneur who has played a key role in the growth of e-commerce^[5] as the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, an online merchant of books and later of a wide variety of products. Under his guidance, Amazon.com became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and a top model for Internet sales.^[6] In 2013, Bezos purchased The Washington Post newspaper.^[7]

Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994 after making a cross-country drive from New York to Seattle, writing up the Amazon business plan on the way. He initially set up the company in his garage.^[21] He had left his "well-paying job" at a New York City hedge fund when he "learned about the rapid growth in Internet use", which coincided with a "then-new U.S. Supreme Court ruling[that] online retailers [would not] have to collect sales taxes in states where they lack a physical presence"; he had headed to Washington because its relatively small population meant fewer of his future customers would have to pay sales tax.^[11]

According to Forbes, Amazon's shares "defied gravity" in 2011, jumping 55% and adding $6.5 billion to Bezos's net worth.^[22]

Bezos is known for his attention to business details. As described by Portfolio.com, he "is at once a happy-go-lucky mogul and a notorious micromanager: "an executive who wants to know about everything from contract minutiae to how he is quoted in all Amazon press releases."^[21]