Jeff Bezos

Born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Adopted by his mother's second husband, Miguel Bezos. A valedictorian and Princeton electrical engineering graduate, he worked on Wall Street building hedge funds. But the internet was growing 2,300% annually. At 30, he made the decision that would change everything.

Driving cross-country with his wife MacKenzie, Jeff wrote the business plan. Starting in a Bellevue garage, Amazon sold its first book in July 1995. The IPO came in 1997 at $18/share. Through the dot-com crash, Bezos preached long-term thinking while competitors vanished.

Amazon Web Services launched S3 and EC2, offering cloud infrastructure to anyone. What started as internal tools became the world's largest cloud provider, powering Netflix, NASA, and millions of startups. AWS now generates more profit than Amazon's retail business.

Prime's free two-day shipping seemed insane—until it created the world's most loyal customers. The Kindle didn't just sell ebooks; it transformed publishing. Bezos wasn't just selling products; he was building infrastructure for modern life.

Founded in 2000, Blue Origin finally sent Bezos to space in 2021. 'Gradatim Ferociter'—Step by Step, Ferociously. After stepping down as Amazon CEO, he's focused on space, climate philanthropy through the Bezos Earth Fund, and acquiring The Washington Post. The everything store was just the beginning.