Jeff Bezos started Amazon in the garage of his home in Seattle. A behemoth that contains ecommerce, cloud computing, and much more, Amazon’s reins are going to Andy Jassy. Here’s a look at Bezos’ timeline from a high school in Miami to suborbital space.
Even after stepping down as the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos remains at the top of the Forbes The World’s Real-Time Billionaires list, as he holds onto the number one position with an iron grip. With an estimated net worth of $203 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaire Index.
His fortune saw a substantial increase in 2020. When the pandemic hit and most businesses were floundering, Amazon was thriving as e-commerce demand went through the roof. Thanks to the blossoming business boom, his net worth went up by $75 million in that year alone. He has faced a certain amount of criticism for this over the years. While his fortune grew, and many of his warehouse workers were living on food stamps, there was a public backlash against the business tycoon.
He received a salary of $81,840 as the CEO of Amazon and additional compensations worth $1.6 million last year. His fortune even exceeds the national GDP of certain nations and even the entire British Monarchy, as per the Business Insider report.
Fair to say Bezos does not live like the average American. One prime example is that he does not pay Income tax. According to USA Today, and data accessed from the Internal Revenue Service, in 2007, an already billionaire Bezos, was not paying any federal taxes. A few years later in 2011, he again paid no taxes and even received a $4,000 tax credit for his children.
He will retain a key role in the company as executive chair, but will no longer focus on the day-to-day operation. The world’s richest person, with more wealth than some developed nations, instead, will turn his gaze to space, with his private exploration company Blue Origin
To mark the new era, on July 20, Blue Origin is to take Bezos, his brother, aerospace pioneer Wally Funk, and a winner of a charity auction, on a short suborbital flight to space.
The change of guard will also free Bezos, to an extent, from those pesky questions as Amazon faces a torrent of regulatory scrutiny, pushback from workers and criticism from activists.
His retirement from his leadership role at the forefront of the company marks a big change for the market landscape as Andy Jassy takes over.
