Everyone knows the world's largest trading platform. At Amazon andstory creation - A vivid example of a success story in an online business. Amazon is the official online store of which is still not in Russian. Some facts from the history of this company are hard to believe. A man with a prestigious job, gives up everything to start his own business. Some moments in the history of the company are like fiction. Nevertheless, all the facts are confirmed by photographs, documents and eyewitness accounts. You will definitely be interested. Let's get started.
A man who is about thirty years old (even a little more) is sitting in a garage at a table knocked together from old doors and hopes that someone will buy books from him over the Internet. It is impossible to believe that this is the future multibillionaire, the creator of the largest trading platform in the world, Jeff Bezos. However, this is so.
History Amazon really began with a garage and several tables with far from the most powerful, even at that time, computers. At the very beginning, the adoptive father invested $ 300 in Jeff's business and bought him a car. Jeff himself by this time managed to work as a top manager of a very influential American credit organization. So absolutely from scratch one of the richest people in the world did not start. He had money, knowledge and experience.
But still cool. Just think: Amazon's value now exceeds $ 350 billion! Now this company is a leader in online trading. The retailer is actively developing its business, attracting more and more new customers and actively increasing sales. Now shares Amazon is recommended to buy in the long term, because everything speaks of maintaining the positive dynamics of securities. The company catalogs hundreds of millions of models of gadgets, a variety of clothes and any other goods that exist. The company delivers over 4 million deliveries per day. The state of Jeff Bezos himself is estimated at $ 70 billion. Only a little poorer than Bill Gates.
As stated above, it all started with the sale of books. Jeff chose to trade them on the assumption that the books do not need to be seen with their own eyes, there is no need to try on clothes, examine them from all angles, etc. It is enough to read the annotation and look at the cover. The product quickly becomes a running gear. Weekly revenue exceeds $ 20 thousand. And in the near future, orders were sent not only to the United States, but also to 40 other countries.
Jeff Bezos. Facts from Amazon founder’s biography
The successful businessman Jeff Bezos was born on January 12, 1964. Parents were Ted Jorgensen and Jacqueline Jays. She was 16, he was 18. Ted did not think about paternity at all, lived by casual earnings, and liked to have fun. They were together for a very short time, and when little Jeff was only a year and a half old, the young people decided to leave.
Ted Jorgensen in 2013.
Jacqueline is the mother of Jeff Bezos, although she was with a child, eventually adjusted her personal life.
In 1968, she married a Cuban émigré, an engineer at the oil company Miguel Bezos. If you believe a beautiful legend, in English he knew only one word - “hamburger”.
Miguel adopted 4-year-old Jeff. This could only be done with the consent of the biological father. The latter was received without any problems. One can judge from everything: Ted did not think about his own son, lived his life and did not think about the future. The stepfather treated the stepson very well, raised him, seriously influenced the character of the boy and even helped him start his own business.
My father disappeared for many, many years. When he found out about his son, who became a multi-billionaire (in 2013-2014), he was inspired with fatherly feelings. I tried to establish a relationship with him. Jeff Bezos did not believe in the sincerity of his mother’s first choice, and a whole life has passed, almost half a century. It's funny that even when the writer Brad Stone interviewed Ted Jorgensen, he had no idea who his offspring had become. Jeff has repeatedly admitted that he considers Miguel to be his true father, and recalls Ted, only filling out a form at the doctor’s appointment.
Creative jeff
From a young age he liked to come up with various gizmos. He constantly invented working (though not always right) devices. All this was perceived by Jeff as a game. Some of the devices not only turned out to be functional, but also distinguished by their originality, testified to the child’s extraordinary mind. Indulging him, parents bought something like children's developmental designers. They were called Heathkit and were sets of electronics and other similar components. Many of the parts were supplied by Jeff's Preston Gais grandfather. At one time he worked in the field of space technology, then in the commission on nuclear energy.
You should not think that the parents fulfilled all the whims of the boy. This was far from the case. In particular, at one time he was just obsessed with a device called the Infinity Cube - a gadget with actuators and movable mirrors. The bottom line is that with the help of the device it was possible to look into "infinity". This device cost about $ 20. There was money in the family, but the purchase was refused.
Jeff did not give up. He assembled his Infinity Cube, since the components of the device were much cheaper than himself. Another Jeff invention was an alarm system for his room. So he wanted to discourage brother Mark and sister Christina from encroaching on their toys.
With the features of a nerd and a nerd, Jeff did not enjoy much respect from his peers. Parents tried to help him. Sometimes it turned out, sometimes not.
As is customary in America, while still studying, Jeff decided to try to earn money. He got a job at McDonald's. He was not enthusiastic about his work, although some automation issues aroused his interest. He even tried to upgrade the system, of course, to fit his needs. In particular, he made a detector on the readiness of products in the kitchen.
The next year, together with a girlfriend decided to start the first business. With her, he organized the Dream Institute summer camp for younger students. I even managed to earn a little. At six hundred dollars per person it turned out fine.
In 1982, Jeff Bezos completed his studies at a school in Miami. As the best student, he gets the opportunity to deliver a farewell speech on behalf of the entire class. She was full of things like the desire to see space hotels, entire colonies outside our planet and all that. Imagine the surprised eyes of graduates and teachers !? However, time will pass, Jeff will remember his words and decide to act. At least try.
Coming up with new projects is one of Jeff Bezos’s rules.
In 2000, Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin, a private aerospace company that aims to develop space tourism. By the way, in 2019, NASA chose this company, however, like a number of other companies, for the development and production of prototypes of spacecraft that will fly to the moon, as part of the Artemis lunar program. For this reason, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are constantly trolling each other on social networks.
At Princeton University, the future billionaire is studying physics, but soon abandons it in favor of computer science and engineering. In the summer, moonlighting as a programmer. Achieves new success - receives a diploma with a mark of summa cum laude. Only 5% of students in North America achieve this.
After university
In 1986, it was time to think about “adult” work. A successful graduate of one of the most prestigious world universities received many attractive offers. He did not accept them, went to Fitel telecommunications startup. Two years passed like two days. He started as the eleventh employee of the company and graduated from the director of the client department. Managed to attend the position of head of development. However, the startup did not take off.
For two years, Jeff Bezos worked as a developer of the Bankers Trust, the largest US bank. In 1990, despite his youth (26 years), he became its vice president. By virtue of this, they are not appointed to such posts. The youngest top manager of one of the most influential US banks of the past century is Jeff Bezos.
In the "blind dates" that Jeff's friends organized, Jeff could not find a soul mate.
Finding himself in the DE Shaw hedge fund in 1990, he met a girl named Mackenzie. There is love at first sight, but here was an understanding of the essence of man at first sight. Do not put it otherwise. Soon the young people got married. Mackenzie was one of the first to whom Jeff revealed his ambitious plans to create a bookstore on a worldwide network. Then the Internet was not yet such in the current sense of the word. Recall, it was 1994. Not everyone had a computer, not to mention the Internet. It is logical that the wife became one of the first employees of the future company, which brought Jeff billions.
“I needed a woman who would pull me out of the category of second-rate people, give me ideas and help me realize them,” the rich man said.
Amazon story. The very beginning
The Internet was spreading at a frantic pace: growth reached 2300% per year. It's easy to grow from scratch, but still the speed is impressive. This did not escape the attention of the shrewd Jeff.
The dotcom bubble was just beginning to emerge. This term itself was not even coined then. The dotcom bubble is an economic bubble caused by unjustified optimism and speculation about Internet startups. Many of them were then liquidated or sold. It was at that moment that Jeff began working on his own online store.
To risk not to regret all that was done later is Jeff Bezos's famous rule.
Amazon has such a history of creation that it can be called an integral part of the history and the entire world Internet. Bezos decided to take a chance and started his own project. This is how the businessman reasoned at the beginning of his journey. In 1994, he left DE Shaw as the company's vice president and moved to Seattle to start his own business.
In an interview, Mackenzie (Bezos's wife) said that Jeff was fanatically passionate about the idea of creating an online trading platform. She supported her husband as best she could, and together with him developed a business plan for a joint startup.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Dell - all of them were born in the garage. Jeff's beginnings were no exception. The company’s first office was a businessman-owned garage in Seattle.
Bezos stopped selling books for a reason: he was a fan of reading. Even now, he obliges his staff to read the book of the American coaches Nassim Toleb, Black Swan. From his subordinates, the businessman seeks responsibility for his actions.
Mail delivery of books left much to be desired, it was often impossible to get exactly what you need.
Programmer Shel Kafan became the first employee of the online store. For the Amazon company, the history of creation began, in fact, with him. Now few people remember this person, but the company's infrastructure, most likely, owes its origin to this person. As long as Jeff saw his benefit, his ideas were accepted, respected, then pushed into the background and forced out.
I do not know if there were "golden parachutes" then, Shel Kafan was clearly left without him. He took Jeff's actions as a betrayal, which he spoke about more than once in his interviews.
The same thing happened with Paul Barton-Davis, who worked on a piecework basis. However, it is possible that Jeff Bezos initially perceived these people as persons with whom they should maintain certain relations while they bring promising ideas, nothing more.
By the way, Bezos constantly argued with his employees, proving the value of another of his “strange ideas”. And he just gushes with ideas: from an online bookstore Amazon in a short time turned into an online store of everything.
Early months of Amazon
The trading floor, it was decided to call Cadabra. After being confused with cadaver in one of the phone conversations (translated from English - corpse), they refused this name. Another option for the company name is Relentless. Not as bad as in the first case, but too aggressive. The interpretation of ruthlessness by users can be completely different. Ruthless is not only a positive hero, but also a corrupt judge, maniac, boss. This name also had to be abandoned, although the domain name has survived to this day and redirects to the current site. In the end, they settled on the name Amazon. This name is associated with the Amazon River, the deepest river in the world, it was in honor of her that the company got its name.
The equipment was located in two rooms of the rented house. Software and platform ready. Initially, the site was launched in test mode. The testers were friends and acquaintances of team members. For other Internet users, Amazon became available in July 1995. A bell hung on the door informed about each of the orders of the company employees. Soon, his ringing turned into a continuous strum, and the subject was removed. A month later, the company traded throughout the United States and sent orders to 45 other regions of the world. After a month and a half, the company earned $ 20 a week. It seemed to its creators something incredible, just could not believe in such income.
Jeff's wife was in charge of finding suppliers. One of the first was Barnes & Noble (physical book retail). They did not yet see their competitors in Amazon, for which they subsequently paid a serious price, it was Amazon who subsequently knocked down the physical book retail. Barnes & Noble created their website only in 1999.
Bezos in a personal car (a 1987 Chevrolet Blazer) delivered orders by mail and dreamed about the day when the company could afford to buy a loader. Perhaps this period includes a joke about office tables made exclusively from old doors.
In general, the founder of Amazon is considered a very mean person: there are no free cafes, massage parlors, tennis courts, etc. in his company. On the contrary, employees pay money even for coffee. Perhaps it was this trait of Jeff that led him to success.
Amazon - online business shark
The story of Amazon is also the story of online marketing. Was innovative feedback systemintroduced by Bezos. It seemed like sheer insanity to have publicly disclosed negative comments on products sold. Many believed that negativity would scare away buyers. On the contrary, there was more confidence, the number of orders grew, and the traffic to the resource increased.
In 1995, sales exceeded half a million dollars. Even Jeff's wildest expectations were not so optimistic. In 1997, it became known about the decision to make Amazon a public company. Investors feared (and not without reason) that after long-time book market players create their own sites, the Amazon trading platform will come to an end. Bezos did not exclude this. In order to avoid such an undesirable development of events, he expanded the range (added music, videos and other goods), and also created a quality control service in the company. Around the same time, a businessman invests a quarter of a million dollars in Google. At Amazon the history of creation full of conflicting facts.
“Or we are the first, or we lost”, - It was this concept that the founder of the company adopted. At the beginning of the work, the company invested all its profits in its development. In 1996, this approach was new. Later this idea was spied and picked up by Google, Facebook and other companies.
In 1999, Jeff Bezos became a billionaire. His fortune is estimated at more than $ 9 billion. The company created by Bezos - at $ 22,1 billion. It would seem that everything is going as it should, but the net profit, in comparison with the figures above, is very miserable: a little more than $ 5 million.
About the weekend in the early years of the company could not be considered. In order to keep employees at work after school hours, Bezos categorically refused to give them tickets, so that there would be no attempts to drop into the last bus. Some argue that a businessman forced two teams to solve the same problems at once, thus increasing internal competition. In general, the real shark was this Jeff Bezos. Journalists, current and former employees constantly criticize the businessman for not popular measures and fierce competition within the company.
Amazon ideology
In an interview with the famous American news magazine, Bezos said something like this: “In business, there are two ways - to focus on competitors and clients. If you go first, it’s easy to lose the initiative. ”
It is widely believed that the Amazon concept is encrypted in its name and logo. This cannot be ruled out, however, in my opinion, the situation is somewhat different. Imaginative people interpret the word "Amazon", customizing their ideas about the company. The letter A is the first in the alphabet, which means that the place in various directories is one of the first. The arrow arrow that appeared under the inscription in 2000 indicates that you will find any product from A to Z on Amazon.
The company's marketing strategy consists of the following items:
- completely free access to goods and services;
- The interface is intuitive for every user;
- expansion goes from smaller to larger;
- branches in all parts of the world;
- communication methods are the most modern;
- universal behavior and thinking.
Amazon always seeks to adapt as much as possible to a changing market. The emphasis is on:
- on modern Internet communications;
- constant PR and statements about the highest quality products;
- the desire to get ahead of the market.
The root cause of the success of Jeff Bezos and Amazon is the ability to get ahead of the market, the businessman’s use of new, previously unknown marketing methods. Without it Amazon the history of creation and development would not be so swift and impressive.
What kind of man is Jeff Bezos?
According to former colleagues, he simply has incredible, irrational stubbornness. Ready to roll mountains, if only to achieve the goal. Does not tolerate lazy and oversight employees. I’m ready to break into a cake for the sake of the set result and expects the same from others. Some of Bezos's remarks to his subordinates can be called insults, though, of the press, they are all subtle, ambiguous, on the verge, but they do not pass it.
From the original team with the businessman, there was practically no one left. This is natural and can be understood. It is likely that a businessman looks at people as tools to achieve their goals. Many people put their soul into his work, worked, sacrificed time, family, children, etc.
The businessman divorced his wife Mackenzie. It became known about the adventures of Jeff with TV presenter Lauren Sanchez. After the divorce proceedings, the ex-spouse passed part of the state in the amount of 4% of Amazon shares, which are valued at $ 39 billion. With this amount, Jeff Bezos's ex-wife takes the 22nd line of the richest people on the planet and becomes the third richest woman according to Bloomberg.
Amazon today
A super corporation with a turnover of tens of billions of dollars per annum, a net profit of $ 500 million. An entire empire, built thanks to the digital revolution and the Internet. The site has powerful advertising, analytics and information departments. A lot of technological services. From explosive development, the company moved to a gradual, stable growth. There are no shocks, no leaps, no failures. Capitalization, assortment is increasing, representative offices are opening in various countries of the world (the official Amazon online store is still not in Russian). Everything suggests that the online shopping store will not give anyone its leading position. “Amazon” does not and does not expect real competitors on a global scale.
Jeff Bezos is a talented and, of course, a very reasonable person. His company, and him personally, are awaiting new challenges and conquering new heights.
Collages comparing modern photos of Bezos with photos taken at the dawn of Amazon, have become an inexhaustible source of memes and jokes on the Internet.
The businessman also bought the Washington Post, for which he was attacked by the current US President Donald trump. During the next exchange of tweets, Bezos promised Trump to book a place for him in one of the Blue Origin rockets, signing his tweet with the #SendDonaldtospace hashtag. For Bezos, Blue Origin is now the main project, he entrusted Amazon's retail management to other people, all in order not to be distracted from the space project.
Now Bezos’s goal is to make space accessible to everyone. Knowing his approach to business, there is no doubt in the new successes of the businessman.
