Jeffrey Preston “Jeff” Bezos (born January 12, 1964) is an American technology entrepreneur and investor. He has played a major role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, initially an online bookstore and later a platform for a wide variety of products and services, including video streaming. Amazon.com became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and a model for internet sales.
Bezos’s other business interests include aerospace and newspapers. He is the founder and owner of the privately funded aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company Blue Origin, which he established in 2000. Test flights began in 2015, with plans for commercial suborbital human spaceflights starting in 2018. In 2013, he purchased The Washington Post. A number of other business investments are managed through Bezos Expeditions.
As of May 2016, Bezos’s personal wealth was estimated at approximately US$59.8 billion, due in part to a recent increase in Amazon’s stock price, ranking him fourth on Forbes’ list of billionaires.
Bezos was born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Jacklyn (née Gise) and Ted Jorgensen. His maternal ancestors were settlers who lived in Texas and, over generations, acquired a 101-square-kilometer ranch near Cotulla. As of March 2015, Bezos was one of the largest landowners in Texas. His maternal grandfather was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque. He retired early to manage the ranch, where Bezos spent many summers in his youth working alongside him.