Question

Jeff Bezos - Amazon

1. Background of early life
2. What idea / creation / innovation is he known for?
3. What made him successful initially?
4. How has he remained successful?

Answer 1

Background: Jeff born on January 12, 1964, Albuquerque, New Mexico U.S. American entrepreneur who played a key role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon Inc, an online merchant of books and later of a wide variety of products. Under his guidance, Amazon became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and the model for Internet sales.

While still in high school,Jeff developed the Dream Institute, a center that promoted creative thinking in young students. After graduating (1986) from Princeton University with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science, he undertook a series of jobs before joining the New York investment bank D.E. Shaw & Co. in 1990. Soon named senior vice president—the firm’s youngest. Jeff was in charge of examining the investment possibilities of the Internet. Its enormous potential—Web usage was growing by more than 2,000 percent a year—sparked his entrepreneurial imagination. In 1994 he quit D.E. Shaw and moved to Seattle, Washington, to open a virtual bookstore. Working out of his garage with a handful of employees, Jeff began developing the software for the site. Named after the South American river, Amazon sold its first book in July 1995.

Jeff set up the office for his fledgling company in his garage where, along with a few employees, he began developing software. They expanded operations into a two-bedroom house, equipped with three Sun Micro station and eventually developed a test site.

After inviting 300 friends to beta test the site, Jeff opened Amazon.com, named after the meandering South American river, on July 16, 1995.

The initial success of the company was meteoric. With no press promotion, Amazon.com sold books across the United States and in 45 foreign countries within 30 days. In two months, sales reached $20,000 a week, growing faster than Jeff and his startup team had envisioned.

Amazon.com went public in 1997, leading many market analysts to question whether the company could hold its own when traditional retailers launched their own e-commerce sites. Two years later, the start-up not only kept up, but also outpaced competitors, becoming an e-commerce leader.

Jeff continued to diversify Amazon’s offerings with the sale of CD and videos in 1998, and later clothes, electronics, toys and more through major retail partnerships. Amazon flourished with yearly sales that jumped from $510,000 to over $17 billion.