The Journey of Jeff Bezos [Infographic]

American entrepreneur, founder and CEO of the world’s largest online shopping retailer Amazon.com and the owner of The Washington Post – Jeffrey Preston Bezos is now the wealthiest man of the world with a net worth of $100 billion. He embraced his failures and turned them into his success.

Here is a brief of his fearless journey:

Some of the genius philosophies of Bezos:

  1. “Every well-intentioned, high-judgment person we asked told us not to do it. We got some good advice, we ignored it, and it was a mistake. But that mistake turned out to be one of the best things that happened to the company.”
  2. “When the world changes around you and when it changes against you, what used to be a tail wind is now a headwind, you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.”

Infographic Content:

From 1964 – 1994 (Early Stage / How he started?)

  1. 1964 – Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico
  2. At age 5 – Star Trek fan, wanted to become an astronaut
  3. 1982 – Went to Princeton University
  4. 1986 – Graduated summa cum laude with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering
  5. 1987 – Joined a startup
  6. 1988 – Wanted to start his own company but got a job on Wall Street
  7. Met his wife, Mackenzie
  8. 1990 – Became the youngest senior vice president at D.E. Shaw
  9. Realized the untapped potential of internet
  10. 1994 – Quit job with the idea of “The Everything Store.”

1995 (The Birth of Amazon)

  1. Set up an office in his garage, invested $10,000, and developed the software
  2. Invited 300 friends to beta test the site and launched the online bookstore Amazon.com
  3. In 2 months – sales reached $20,000 a week, total $510,000 in 1995

From 1997 – 2017 (The Rise of Innovations and Inventions – Achievements and Failures)

  1. 1997 – Amazon.com went public and became an e-commerce leader in 2 years
  2. Introduced CDs, videos, clothes, electronics, and more
  3. 1998 – Purchased Junglee: price comparison search site & spent $170 million. It was disbanded in few months.
  4. Launched e-reader- Kindle in 2007
  5. 2007 – Launched Amazon WebPay (similar to PayPal) but closed in Oct 2014
  6. 2000 – Founded a rocket company Blue Origin
  7. 2011 – Introduced TestDrive but shut it down in 2015
  8. Sales crossed $17 billion in 2011
  9. Broke internet with purchasing The Washington Post for $250 million
  10. Dec 2013 – Announced to start “Amazon Prime Air” – delivery services using drones
  11. July 2014 – Launched Fire Phone, had $170 million loss, got criticized and discontinued it soon
  12. 2015 – Launched Amazon Destinations but shuttered the service in 6 months – “I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”
  13. Became the world’s richest person (net worth over $100 billion) surpassing Microsoft founder Bill Gates – July 2017 (Forbes)
  14. November 2017 – Amazon’s share price increased by more than 2.5%