Jeff Bezos : Amazon founder turns a new leaf, welcomes new ventures

Jeff Bezos built the world’s largest business empire almost three decades ago from his garage without speculating the fact that he might become the richest man on the planet. Well, he did that but it seems this wasn’t all for him for now he is turning to new projects.

Bezos has announced that he will step down as the CEO of the technology giant to focus on other business and philanthropic ventures.

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Jeff Bezos, who is now 57 years old,  founded Amazon in 1994 and went on to grow it into a colossus that dominates online retail, with operations in streaming music and television, groceries, cloud computing, robotics, artificial intelligence and more.

He announced on Tuesday that he would transition to Executive Chair and hand over the job of the Chief Executive Officer of the company he founded almost 27 long years ago to Andy Jassy, who heads the cloud computing unit AWS.

In a letter written by Bezos to the employees at Amazon, Bezos wrote: “This journey began some 27 years ago.”

“As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition,” he wrote.

In announcing the news, he said he would remain involved with Amazon but also devote time to his other businesses include The Washington Post newspaper and the private space firm Blue Origin.

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Bezos will also concentrate on his philanthropic efforts which include his Day One Fund and the Bezos Earth Fund, to which he made a $10 billion donation last year.

“I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have,” he wrote.

This move by Bezos comes right after his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott seized the spotlight in the philanthropic arena by taking a pledge to give away the majority of her possessions to social causes, starting with nearly $6 billion last year to a variety of organizations chosen with the help of advisors.

Jeff Bezos’ stake in online giant gives him a personal worth of some $196 billion, making him the world’s richest individual, ahead of Tesla founder Elon Musk who held that distinction for a short span of time.

The huge rise of Amazon has come after a rapid global expansion and risking with its investments and innovation.

“It is hard to believe that Mr. Bezos only founded the company some 26 years ago,” stated analyst Neil Saunders of the research firm GlobalData.

He added, “Into that short period has been crammed a whole lifetime of innovation and entrepreneurship which have transformed not only the company’s fortunes but the whole shape and configuration of the retail sector.”

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“Its relentless focus on the customer and its constant pursuit of finding better ways of doing business made it not only a survivor but a leader of the internet age.”

Jeff Bezos has been in the headlines in recent years not only for his business success but also for his 2019 divorce from MacKenzie, his wife of 25 years and an attempt at blackmail which he decided to make public.

He stood up to the National Enquirer, controlled by former president Donald Trump’s ally David Pecker, who threatened to release lurid and intimate pictures of Bezos and his mistress, by sharing details of the exchanges with the public himself.

“If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?” Bezos wrote on Medium.

His penchant for experimenting reportedly dates to a young age with stories of attempts on trying to dismantle his own crib being widely shared.

Bezos’ mother was a teenage-mom who gave birth to the mogul in Albuquerque, New Mexico on January 12, 1964.

She remarried a Cuban immigrant when her Jeff was about four years old and he was legally adopted by his stepfather who worked as an engineer at a petrochemical company.

“My dad came here from Cuba all by himself without speaking English when he was 16 years old and has been kicking ass ever since,” Bezos tweeted on Father’s Day.

Bezos was enchanted by computer science when the IT industry was in its infancy and he studied engineering at Princeton University.

After graduating, he put his skills to work on Wall Street, where by 1990 he had been promoted to the position of senior vice president at the famous investment firm D.E. Shaw.

However, about four years later he surprised his peers by leaving his high-paid position, backed by money borrowed from his parents, to open an online bookseller called Amazon.com.

Looking back at the journey so far, he offered this advice in his parting letter to staff: “Keep inventing, and don’t despair when at first the idea looks crazy.”