Jeff Bezos was born in Albuquerque (New Mexico) and the last name, Bezos, belongs to his stepfather, a Cuban immigrant. In 1996 he graduated in Electronic Engineering from Princeton University and ended up working as a financial analyst at DE Shaw, a Wall Street company.
However, Bezos’ aspirations were much higher and despite having a well-paying job that provided stability, he decided to bet everything on an idea that had been brewing in his head. Bezos, became a great visionary who recognized the potential of the technology sector, so he decided to venture into the business of online sales at a time when this type of commerce was hardly relevant.
As headquarters it had the garage of the house that he had rented with his ex-wife, Mckenzie, in Seattle. The initial investment necessary to start this new project was contributed by his mother and his adoptive father , $ 300,000 that they had saved for their retirement. In this makeshift office, Bezos installed 3 processors that became the origin of what is now one of the most powerful companies in the world, Amazon.
The company, created in 1994, was originally called Cadabra , but the name did not finish curdling so it was renamed Amazon. It is said that this decision would be based on Bezos’s taste for the Amazon River, although the most convincing theory is the importance that he will start with A, to achieve good positions in the network.
Amazon was originally a kind of virtual bookstore, it had a large online catalog where customers could buy the book according to their preferences. The first sale was registered in July 1995, and by 1997 the company was reaching almost every corner of the planet.
Today Amazon is known internationally, but in those years the commitment to a practically unexplored sector and in a society in which consumption habits were traditional, seemed to be synonymous with failure , however, it became the benchmark for what we know today as e-commerce . We cannot understand this sector without knowing the history of Amazon.
It was the first company to incorporate the shopping cart icon to place orders, and its main strategy was to bet on the consumer, gaining their trust, a titanic task in such a demanding group, but which was achieved through a very clear business policy: the customer is always right . In the words of Bezos himself:
“Our vision is to be the most consumer-centric company in the world, where customers come and find everything they want to buy online.”
Bezos, who had already realized the success of his idea, decided to expand the business to other sectors such as music, electronics, fashion, food ; few are the things that are not in their catalog. The success of this type of sales lies in the possibility of buying the product we want at any time, regardless of where we are, and through any device. Amazon has been reinventing itself over the years and adapting to changes in the consumer sector.
Bezos is undoubtedly one of the greatest geniuses of this century. In 1999, Time magazine named him person of the year . Currently, in addition to being the CEO of Amazon, he is the majority shareholder of the Washington Post and the aerospace company Blue Origins. In addition, he tops the Forbes list of the richest in the world, being the first person to exceed the threshold of 100 billion dollars , with a fortune of 157 billion.
What started in a garage became one of the most powerful and most valued companies of all time, which shows us that risk is the seed of success.
More information: másqueapple.com
