About

Jeff Bezos is an American entrepreneur, business person and philanthropist. He is the founder and CEO of the online retailer Amazon.com. In 2018, he became the wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $112 billion.

History

Jeff Bezos was born on January 12th, 1962 in Albuqurque, New Mexico. Throughout his childhood, he moved from New Mexico to Texas and finally Miami, Florida. He graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.^[1]

Amazon

In 1994, Jeff Bezos quit his job at a New York City hedge fund and drove cross-country to Washington state to start a retail website, taking advantage of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Quill Corp. v. North Dakota^[2] which declared online retail businesses did not have to collect sales tax in states where they did not have a physical presence. On his way, he received $300,000 from his parents in Texas and wrote up a business plan for his new venture.^[3] Upon arrival in Bellevue, Washington, Bezos operating an online bookstore out of his garage, selling the first book (shown below) in July 1995.^[4]

Within two months of launch, Amazon's sale reached up to $20,000 per week and in October 1995, the website was introduced to the public as the "World’s Largest Bookseller Opens on the Web." Following its reincorporation in Delaware, Amazon issued its initial public offering of stock in May 1997. Since then, the company has acquired dozens of other Internet-based companies, most persistently in e-shopping and e-commerce sectors (Bookpages, CDNow, CreateSpae, Audible, AbeBooks, GoodReads, Zappos), gradually reinventing itself as an online department store, consumer electronics producer and major provider of cloud computing services.^[5]

In 2016, the company generated more than 135 billion in revenue.^[6]

Reputation

Bezos, among other things, is known mostly for his vast wealth. On March 6th, 2018, Forbes announced that his wealth had surpassed Bill Gates as the world's wealthiest man, topping their list of the world's billionaires. That year, Bezos's net worth was registered at $112 billion.^[7]

Personal Life

In 1993, Bezos married MacKenzie Tuttle. The couple has four children together: three boys and one adopted daughter from China.

Divorce

On January 9th, 2019, Bezos announced on Twitter ^[8] that they would be divorced. In a tweet co-signed by the pair, Bezos posted, "As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends." The tweet received more than 6,100 retweets and 28,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

According to reports, the divorce could make MacKensize Tuttle the world's richest woman worth $69 billion.^[11]

#JeffBezosPickMeDaddyChallenge

That day, Twitter^[9] user @ryanyeetz tweeted a photograph of a man in a fedora and the caption, "#JeffBezosPickMeDaddyChallenge please jeff i can be the new love of your life." The tweet received more than 240 retweets and 3,200 likes in 24 hours (shown below, left).

Following the post, others began posting humorous selfies and photographs using the hashtag "#JeffBezosPickMeDaddyChallenge" (examples below, center and right).

The following day, The Daily Dot ^[10] reported on the hashtag.

Related Memes

Swole Jeff Bezos

Swole Jeff Bezos refers to a photograph of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos looking muscular in a performance vest and aviator sunglasses. The image became a popular subject of a photoshop battle in July 2017.

Search Interest

External References