Jeff Bezos: From a Bellevue Garage to Amazon and Beyond
Jeff Bezos at Blue Origin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in February 2026. Photo: SECWAR / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
Jeff Bezos built Amazon from a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington, into one of the largest companies in the world, and in the process became one of the wealthiest people on the planet. As of May 2026, Bloomberg put his net worth at roughly $279 billion, fourth in its rankings, while Forbes estimated about $284 billion.
Early life and education
He was born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen on January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His mother was Jacklyn Gise. In 1968 his stepfather, Miguel “Mike” Bezos, a Cuban immigrant, adopted him, and he took the Bezos name. He grew up in Houston and Miami and graduated as valedictorian of Miami Palmetto High School in 1982.
At Princeton University he started in physics, then switched to electrical engineering and computer science. He earned a Bachelor of Science in engineering in 1986, summa cum laude.
From Wall Street to Amazon
After college Bezos worked at Fitel and then at Bankers Trust, from 1988 to 1990. He moved to the investment firm D. E. Shaw & Co., where he was a senior vice president by age 30. In 1994 he left to start his own company.
He and his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, founded Amazon on July 5, 1994, in that Bellevue garage. It began as an online bookstore. The company went public in 1997, the year Bezos first became a millionaire, according to Wikipedia’s account.
Amazon grew well beyond books. Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing arm, launched in 2002. The Kindle e-reader followed in November 2007. Forbes and Bloomberg ranked Bezos the world’s richest person from 2017 to 2021, and he was the first person registered as a centibillionaire.
In February 2021 he announced he would step down as chief executive. On July 5, 2021, he became executive chairman, and Andy Jassy took over as CEO.
Blue Origin, The Washington Post and other ventures
Bezos founded Blue Origin, a human spaceflight company, in September 2000. On July 20, 2021, he flew aboard its New Shepard rocket on the NS-16 mission, reaching about 66.5 miles. His brother, Mark, aviator Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen were also aboard.
In August 2013 he announced the purchase of The Washington Post for $250 million in cash. The sale closed Oct. 1, 2013, through his holding company, Nash Holdings. In February 2025 he announced changes to the paper’s opinion policies, which he said would promote “free markets and personal liberties.”
His personal investment vehicle, Bezos Expeditions, made early bets that included Google in 1998. In November 2025, news outlets reported that he had co-founded an artificial intelligence start-up, Project Prometheus, with Vik Bajaj.
Philanthropy and personal life
In February 2020, Bezos pledged $10 billion to the Bezos Earth Fund to combat climate change, and he serves as its executive chair. His post-CEO focus also included the Day 1 Fund, and he is listed as a leader of Bezos Academy. Critics have said his giving has been modest compared with his wealth and with that of some other billionaires.
He married MacKenzie Scott in 1993. They divorced in 2019, and she received 25 percent of his Amazon shares, then valued at roughly $36 billion. They have four children. He married Lauren Sánchez in Venice on June 27, 2025.
In 2019 Bezos bought apartments overlooking Madison Square Park in Manhattan, and in 2020 he bought the Warner Estate in Los Angeles. On Feb. 2, 2026, he and Blue Origin CEO David Limp greeted Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at Blue Origin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, during a visit by Hegseth.
Source: Wikipedia, “Jeff Bezos,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos.
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