Introduction:
Jeffrey Preston Bezos, popularly Jeff Bezos is an American investor, media tycoon, and a business magnate. Born on January 12, 1964, Jeff Bezos, has professional degrees in both computer science and electrical engineering. He is the founder and CEO of the e-commerce giant Amazon. The foundation of Amazon was laid in late 1994 initially as an online book store in his garage. After three years of its foundation, Jeff Bezos took Amazon public as IPO (initial public offerings). Initially, an online book store Amazon has expanded its reach to an immense range of other e-commerce products and services. They also added up audio and video streaming platforms, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing over the years.
How Amazon started providing various service over the years:
The integration of audio and video platforms has made Amazon one search destination, from the favorite products to songs and videos, movies everything is available at a single click. Presently Amazon is the largest online sales company, the largest online company based on revenue, and through the Amazon web services branch, it is the largest contributor of cloud infrastructure and virtual assistants services. Under the leadership and guidance of Jeff Bezos, the stock holdings of amazon appreciated nearly $109 billion in 2018. He believed in ” Get Big Fast” and used it to push amazon forward and establish the company’s operations to produce market dominance.
Growth of Amazon:
And there is no doubt that Amazon is the e-commerce giant presently. Amazon revenues saw a growth of 38% to $386 billion in 2020 since the pandemic forced people to stay back at home and make online purchases.
Jeff Bezos also founded Blue Origin company in 2000 that is an aerospace manufacturer and also provides sub-orbital spaceflight services. He also acquired one of America’s biggest newspaper companies, The Washington Post in 2013. Jeff Bezos also owns a venture capital company, Bezos Expeditions through which he makes personal investments.
Amazon investments:
In the year 1998, he invested a sum of $250,000 in Google and became one of its shareholders. This investment turned around $3.1 billion in 2017, thus adding more to his wealth. His other investments are in the field of health sector like GRAIL, Unity Biotechnology, Zocdoc, Juno Therapeutics.
As per the Forbes wealth index 2018, Jeff Bezos is the ‘richest man in modern history ‘ with a net worth of $150 billion. According to Forbes in August 2020, his net worth increased to $200 billion. Jeff Bezos’s wealth grew up by approximately $24 billion during the pandemic.
Stepping Down as the CEO of Amazon
It was announced on February 2, 2021, that Jeff Bezos will step down as the CEO of Amazon on July 5, 2021. Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon’s cloud computing division, Amazon web services will take over as the CEO of amazon on July 5 and Jeff Bezos will take the responsibility of executive chairman.
The previous position of Andy Jassy will be taken over by Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky. The reason behind choosing July 5, 2021, to step down is because on this day Amazon was incorporated in 1994. After taking over as the executive chairman, the involvement of Jeff Bezos in the company’s operations will consist of one-way-door decisions. This will be related to big decisions like overall business strategies and acquisitions.
