Everyone knows what a formidable force Jeff Bezos is. He is the richest man on this planet, started a humungous e-marketplace that has global permeation and influence, donates extraordinary sums to charitable causes, and has a story that can inspire you. During the pandemic, his businesses grew more rapidly than ever, pushing him to the top place among the super-wealthy humans on this planet. A self-made billionaire he is, he has had too many experiences and lessons not to share; too many facts of his life that may surprise readers.
Today, I decided to explore more about Jeff Bezos. He is, of course, more than his net worth. We will know a bit along these lines in this article. I have shortlisted 5 things about Jeff Bezos that go beyond what is usually discussed about him in the media.
On this note, let us take a look at what we have got here.
- It could have been Cadabra
Well, we all have our respective way of naming things and people. Surely, Jeff Bezos is no exception. When he decided to establish the eventual largest online bookstore in the world, he thought of a name that was a bit on the unconventional side. His choice was ‘Cadabra,’ but that name didn’t see the light of the day. Why? His lawyer asked him not to go ahead with it. Not long after that, Jeff considered naming his venture after the largest river in the world, Amazon. Would you have preferred Cadabra? For me, it is a nay, but who am I to say! - Not just Amazon
Yes, he started with Amazon. What was once a mere online bookstore eventually became a gigantic marketplace to buy all kinds of things from. The wealth he accumulated from Amazon wasn’t sitting idle and had been invested. As a result, Jeff Bezos does not have only Amazon to his credit.
In the year 2013, Jeff Bezos purchased a loss-incurring newspaper company called The Washington Post for USD250 million. Within hours of purchase, the shares of the company soar up to as much as 5.5 percent. Now, the newspaper company has come back strong and turned into a profit. Midas Touch? No, Nothing comes easy and it is this man’s knack for turning opportunity into gold that did the work. - Well, he played a small role in a movie we all know about
I didn’t notice him until I read that he was in the 2016 reboot of Star Trek. As I read more, I got to know that he confessed to having persistently asked the film studio, Paramount, to let him be in the movie. And, you know now how the whole thing went like. He was cast in the movie as a heavily guarded and limousine-borne alien CEO. He loved the franchise since childhood and could finally experience it personally. - He is interested in space exploration
A flurry of rich people has been experimenting with the idea of space exploration. Jeff Bezos is as much interested as they are. He, in fact, has been interested in the possibility of providing cheap, reliable access to space through reusable launch vehicles for quite some time now. In the year 2000, he launched a company called Blue Origin. The said company is involved in the manufacture of launch vehicles and aims to launch commercial passenger flights in the future. In the year 2021, and you might have already heard of this, Jeff Bezos was part of the company’s first crewed mission to space. - Making amends
Jeff Bezos was born to a teenage mother. She gave birth to him at the age of 17 in the year 1964 and divorced her husband, Jeff’s biological father, Ted Jorgensen, within a year of marriage. Ted was a unicyclist in a circus and hadn’t seen Jeff for decades. Eventually, when he found out that Jeff Bezos is his son, he reached out to him and the two of them finally made amends. Jeff himself has been quite vocal about his relationship with his biological father against whom, he says, he does not harbor any ill-feeling.
