The Face Behind Amazon.com

Who is Jeff Bezos? He’s the guy that started Amazon.com. Right?

Jeffrey Preston Bezos (BAY-zoes) is the founder, president, CEO, and chairman of the board of Amazon.com. He is the person that revolutionized business in America, and would eventually change the world. Time magazine chose Bezos as Person of the Year in 1999.

Bezos would spend much of his youth with his beloved grandfather, Preston Gise, in Cotulla, Texas. Jeff was very technically oriented and worked with a Heathkit amateur radio, among other projects.

Jeff and his family would later wind up in Miami, Florida. Jeff graduated number one out of 680 students at Miami Senior Palmetto High School. He was described as intellectual, competitive, and confident. He graduated with a B.S.E. in electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton University.

Career choices led him to New York. Jeff would work at Fitel, BT Financial Group, and D.E. Shaw and Co. Jeff prospered in his respectable white collar positions; jobs dealing with computer technology and finance.

Jeff Bezos would find his bride at the D.E. Shaw company. Her name was MacKenzie Tuttle. She was a research associate on his staff. The couple would wed in 1993, the same year that the World Wide Web was born.

In the summer of 1994, Jeff and McKenzie would give up their apartment on the Upper West side of Manhattan, and then pack up their belongings. They flew to Texas, where Jeff’s parents lived. The couple would then drive a 1988 Chevy Blazer (donated by his father) to Seattle, Washington.

In November of 1994, Jeff Bezos, Shel Kaphan, and Paul Barton-Davis would set up shop in a converted garage on 28th Street N.E. in Bellevue.

This was very humble beginnings for a company that would become the most famous Internet retailer in the world, in just two years.

Bezos is described as being short, slight, balding, with an incredible famous laugh that resonates with people.

A writer of the New York Times Magazine calls Bezos a “brilliant, charming, hyper and misleadingly goofy mastermind.”

Jeff Bezos, a very focused and determined nerd, is now one of the most richest men in the world. Amazon.com is easily one of the the most recognized brand names online, and is America’s largest online retailer.

To learn more about Jeff and the history of Amazon.com, you may want to check out the book — Amazon.com: Get Big Fast . Well written by Robert Spector, it tells the real story that very few know about.