When Bezos was 3 years old, he was very angry about sleeping in a crib. At first, his mother didn't think he wanted a real big bed. But a few days later, his mother saw him holding a screwdriver and wanted to take down the crib to make it look more like a bed. This character paved the way for his future success.
Bezos' grandfather was a manager of the former Atomic Energy Commission. Grandfather cultivated his love of science. /kloc-at the age of 0/4, he decided to be an astronaut or a physicist. His garage is full of his engineering experiments or scientific experiments, which are full of his engineering projects: hydrofoil made of vacuum cleaner and solar cooker made of umbrella. Bezos often spends his summer holidays on his grandfather's farm in Texas. At the age of 16, he was able to install windmills, use arc welding machines and castrate cattle.
I spent my middle school days in Miami Pukui Middle School. I was the monitor and graduate representative. In high school, Bezos showed his talent as an enterprise. He set up a "dream" association, held summer activities, developed students' innovative thinking, and even encouraged his sister and brother to participate. In the late middle school, Bezos became interested in shooting binoculars. But its price is as high as 20 dollars, which my mother thinks is too high. So he bought cheap parts and installed them himself. This story was recorded in writing and officially published in Houston on 1977 (this book has never been listed in Amazon online bookstore). When he graduated from high school, Bezos won the highest honor of American high school graduates, "American Scholarship for Outstanding Students" because of his outstanding performance in all aspects.
Jeff Bezos entered Princeton University, where Einstein taught in his later years, and his interest turned to computers, which coincided with the period of earth-shaking changes in the computer industry. He said, "I'm stuck in my computer, expecting some revolutionary breakthroughs." 1986 obtained a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University, graduated with honors, and became a member of the American Excellent Students Association.
History of Entrepreneurship 1986, Bezos graduated from Princeton University, a famous American university, and soon entered a newly established high-tech company in new york.
Bezos 1988, Bezos moved to a banker's trust company in new york to manage the computer system, with assets worth $250 billion. At the age of 25, he became the youngest vice president in the history of this bank trust company.
From 1990 to 1995, Bezos co-founded the most advanced and successful hedge fund transaction management company in the world, and became the youngest senior vice president of the company from 1992.
1994, while surfing the Internet, Bezos accidentally entered a website and saw the figure of-2,300%. The number of Internet users is increasing at this rate every year. At that time, Microsoft in Seattle had gradually grown up. When Bezos saw this number, his eyes lit up and he hoped that he could be like Microsoft. Be successful in IT industry and become a trendsetter on the Internet.
Jeff Bezos Bezos listed more than 20 kinds of goods, then eliminated them one by one and simplified them into books and music products. Finally, he decided to sell books first. Books are especially suitable for online display. As a big publishing country, the United States has 6.5438+0.3 million kinds of books, but only 200,000 to 300,000 kinds of music products. The book distribution industry has a huge market space, with annual sales of $260 billion, but the annual sales of the largest chain bookstore in the United States and the largest bookstore with more than 1000 branches in the world only account for 12%.
A few weeks later, he refused the generous treatment and embarked on the road of entrepreneurship. Bezos informed the moving company that he would inform them as soon as he chose three places in Colorado, Oregon or Washington, and then he hurried west. He put his wife in charge of driving, and he couldn't wait to draft a business plan with his laptop, and couldn't wait to contact with his mobile phone to raise start-up funds.
From 65438 to 0995, Bezos moved from new york to Seattle. He chose Seattle because there are ready-made technical talents here and it is close to the Oregon warehouse of Ingram Book Department, a large channel distributor. Bezos founded Amazon, the first online retail company in the United States, with a start-up capital of $300,000. (Amazon) In a rented garage on the outskirts of Seattle. Bezos named his company after the world's largest river, hoping that it would become a veritable "Amazon" among book companies.
In the initial stage of the company, Bezos spent 1 year building websites and databases in order to make Amazon stand firm under the competitive pressure of traditional bookstores. At the same time, he humanized the network interface, bringing comfortable visual effects to customers and facilitating the selection of services. Of course, there are 165438+ million books. When building the database, he was even more careful, and it only took him three months to test the software. Time has proved that Bezos's approach is extremely correct. With these advantages,1July, 995, Amazon officially opened its "virtual business door".
From the beginning, Amazon faced many challenges, the most powerful of which was the competition from the traditional giant Barnes & Noble Bookstore. Even if you don't want to compete for the market, you have to face it, because Barnes & Noble will never allow an imaginary opponent to seize its own market. On the other hand, it is a struggle between tradition and modernity.
In the market competition, Amazon's advantages are gradually emerging. First of all, Amazon is one of the cheapest bookstores. It is discounted every day, and it is almost the largest discount store in the world. There are more than 300 thousand titles that can be discounted. Indeed, unlike the traditional bookstore operation, it is exploited without middlemen, which makes books or other commodities sold by Amazon have relatively flat prices. Of course, there are a few other bookstores that are cheaper, but the price difference is very small. Because the cheapest is not the most important thing, what is important is that there are many cheap books here and they are convenient, so customers are not even willing to look elsewhere for a little difference, but only choose Amazon.
Besides, it has faster service and more comprehensive bibliography than traditional bookstores. Buy books on Amazon. Com, because of its strong technical support, can usually get a response within three seconds. It greatly saves customers' time. Compared with Barnes & Noble Bookstore, there are only 250,000 different books at most, but on the Internet, Amazon can produce 2.5 million books. Bezos said: If there is a chance to print out the catalogue provided by Amazon in written form, it will be equivalent to seven new york City phone books.
Speed is also reflected in the update of inventory goods. Amazon has almost no inventory except 200 bestsellers. But even with such inventory, the frequency of Amazon updates is still surprising. According to statistics, Amazon changes its inventory as many as 150 times a year, while Barnes & Noble only changes it 3-4 times. This data not only shows the speed of Amazon, but also shows its sales.
Bezos is a real innovator on the Internet. Amazon has 30,000 "entrusting organizations" that recommend books published by Amazon on their websites. When online visitors click on their websites to buy recommended books, these "affiliates" can draw a commission of 15% from Amazon.
At the same time, Bezos also helped to define an Internet community centered on shopping websites. The editorial content of this community is updated every day, and at the same time, it also provides services of "readers' book review" and "continuing to write novels". He is the first person to adopt this method on the Internet. These two small innovations alone have added at least nearly 400,000 customers to Amazon.
But Bezos will continue to expand rapidly. In short, it is the word "big, bigger". His business is not limited to books, he wants to build the largest online shopping center.
Through this series of efforts, Amazon has gradually become stronger and Bezos' vision has been further developed. 1In March 1998, Amazon opened a children's bookstore. Although Amazon was already the largest and most famous bookstore on the Internet at this time, Bezos continued to use his theory to guide Amazon's further development. In June, Amazon Music Store opened; In July, we cooperated with Intuit personal finance website to select desktop software; In June 5438+10, it entered the European continental market; 1 1 month. Sell more videos and other gifts; 1February, 1999, bought the equity of drugstore website and invested in it; In March, we invested in a pet website and established an online auction station. In May, I invested in the website of home products.
On June 5438+ 10, 2000, Amazon reached a cooperation agreement with Internet express company worth 60 million US dollars, so that the goods ordered by users can be delivered to the door within 1 hour. The direct result of this series of measures is that Amazon's customers have exceeded150 thousand. In this process, Amazon completed the transformation from a pure online bookstore to an online retailer. Behind this set of data, what people see is continuous expansion and expansion. At this stage, Amazon's share price has risen more than 50 times, and the company's market value has reached 20 billion US dollars at its peak.
By July 2002, the expected economic recovery and IT recovery did not appear. WorldCom declared bankruptcy protection because of the financial scandal, and the global telecommunications industry was crying. In the suffering of others, Internet companies have a unique landscape. A large number of listed internet companies began to get rid of the "deficit" career and move towards a healthy profit path. Major Internet companies such as Yahoo, Yi Bei and Amazon. They all announced results that exceeded expectations, and their business models still stood firm after being severely questioned.
The dull internet industry finally heard Bezos' long-lost laughter again. He admitted that his expectation in 1994 was completely wrong, because he underestimated the power of e-commerce. "Our initial business plan is expected to achieve $70 million in sales revenue and $4 million in operating profit in 200 1 year." In 200 1 year, Amazon's revenue is expected to reach $3 billion, 42 times as much as originally expected.
When people still don't know what "e-commerce" is and are still discussing "e-commerce". Bezos proved what e-commerce is with his own actions. Amazon is the first e-commerce brand on the Internet. 1July, 1995, Amazon was just a small website, but by 20001October, the total market value of Amazon had reached 2 10 billion US dollars, eight times that of its old rival Barnes & Noble. In less than five years, Amazon has created an online myth with amazing growth rate.
Some people say that according to Amazon's sales performance, opening a physical bookstore should cover at least a few square miles. Whether you are in Tunisia, Africa, or China, Asia, you can browse Amazon's bibliography and find the books you want to buy accurately and effectively with a click of the mouse.
Achievement Honor 1999 was elected as Time Magazine's Person of the Year and one of the "25 Most Influential People in the Internet Age" selected by American Business Weekly.
Jeff Bezos was named the man of the year in the 1999 era. In 2007, Business 2.0 magazine selected the top 50 in the business world, and Jeff Bezos ranked 12.
In 2007, Jeff Bezos ranked 188 on Forbes' list of global billionaires with assets of $4.4 billion.
In the Forbes list of global billionaires in 2008, Jeff Bezos ranked 1 10 with assets of $8.2 billion.
In 2009, Jeff Bezos ranked 68th on the Forbes list of global billionaires with a wealth of $6.8 billion.
In the Forbes list of global billionaires in 20 10, Jeff Bezos ranked 43rd with123 billion dollars.
In the Forbes list of global billionaires in 20 12, Jeff Bezos ranked 26th with184 billion dollars.
On the 20 16 Hurun Global Rich List, Jeff Bezos ranked fourth with $35 billion.
20 17 Forbes 20 17 Global Rich List, Jeff Bezos entered the top three for the first time with a net worth of 72.8 billion US dollars.
20 17 On July 27th, Amazon's share price reached 1066, and Jeff Bezos's personal wealth reached 91300 million, making him the richest man in the world for the first time.
In June of 20 17, it reached the summit again, and in June of 2010/0, its net wealth exceeded the10 billion dollar mark for the first time.
20 18 65438+ 10, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), has now become the richest man in the world. By June+10/October 8, 5438, Bezos' net wealth had reached 105 1 billion dollars, which dwarfed the previous record of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (Nasdaq: MSFT). At the same time, Forbes magazine estimated that Bezos' net wealth was $654.38+$004.4 billion.
20 18 On February 28th, Hurun Research Institute released the Hurun Global Rich List (20 18). Jeff Bezos won the world's richest man for the first time with a wealth of 775 billion yuan.
Private life? His wife Mackenzie Bezos is a novelist. She is a staunch supporter of Jeff Bezos leaving Wall Street to join the Internet, so she is frequently mentioned in the history of Amazon's entrepreneurial development. After graduating from Princeton University, Mackenzie Bezos worked as a research assistant in D.E.Shaw, an investment management company. Bezos was one of the vice presidents of the company at that time, and they chose to get married after less than a year of knowing each other.
Jeff Bezos (right) and Mackenzie Bezos (left) 2065438+65438 2009+10/October 9, Jeff Bezos decided to divorce his wife Mackenzie Bezos, ending 25 years of marriage.
Management philosophy 1. Write down new ideas
In Amazon, the executive meeting was not a conference call or PowerPoint presentation at first, but reading and reading a lot. According to Fortune magazine, Bezos said that group reading helps to ensure that the team's attention will not be distracted. For executives, the key is the skill of writing memos. He said: "It is more difficult to write complete sentences. They have verbs. There are topic sentences in the paragraph. Without clear thinking, you can't write a six-page memorandum of narrative structure. "
As entrepreneur and writer Ben Si Nuo said, when you speak, the audience can easily fill in the gaps in your creativity and make it easy for you to cover up the details. By asking team members to write everything down, Bezos can make them fully consider every detail of an idea and make it stand the test in the next few years.
2. Let team members become business owners
Compared with other communication technology giants in Silicon Valley, Amazon advocates "lean management" mode. It doesn't provide free lunch for employees, on the contrary, it will keep wages at a very low level, and there are even rumors that Amazon uses door panels as desks instead of expensive modern office tools. But this does not mean that Amazon employees are not well treated.
Amazon prefers to use options to motivate employees rather than cash. Bezos said in a letter to shareholders 1997: "We are very clear that the success of Amazon depends largely on whether we can attract and retain employees. Every employee wants to be the master, so they should be the master. "
3. Follow the "Two Pizza Principles"
Bezos insists on avoiding complacency at all costs. The Wall Street Journal reported that a former Amazon executive recalled that at an event, several managers suggested employees to strengthen communication, but Bezos stood up and said, "No, communication is terrible!"
On the contrary, Bezos advocates that enterprises should implement decentralized management, even if they are in an unorganized state, it doesn't matter. Only in this atmosphere can independent thinking gain the upper hand in the contest with collective opinions. He believes that the team should be as small as possible, and at the same time, the communication between employees should be moderately restricted. Bezos said that he advocates the "two pizza principles": if neither pizza can feed a team, it means it is too big.
4. Set aside time to think about the future
Wired magazine revealed in an interview with Bezos on 1999 that he would set aside two days a week to think about life and find new ideas. Sometimes, he just surf the Internet or immerse himself in his own world.
5. Routine check-in for long-term goals
Wired magazine also reported in 1999 that Bezos meets with assistants every quarter to evaluate their progress in the 12 pre-selection project. Bezos mainly hopes to make sure that he won't waste every day by testing his achievements in the past three months. This way of signing in helps to ensure that he always sticks to his long-term goals, and his attention will not be distracted by new and fleeting ideas.
6. Reverse working method
Amazon, which started from selling books online, has been entering new fields such as music, cloud storage and content production for nearly 20 years. These attempts seem random, but they are all for the same goal, that is, everything starts from the needs of customers. This "work backward" mode is different from the "skills forward" mode. In the latter mode, individuals or enterprises often decide the next action according to the existing technology and ability.
Bezos wrote in a letter to shareholders in 2008: "In the end, the existing skills will become obsolete. The' reverse work method' requires us to explore new skills and hone new skills, never caring about the discomfort and embarrassment when taking the first step. "
Bezos also applied this logic to his personal life. Whenever he has to make a major decision, he often thinks like this, assuming he is 80 years old, what is his attitude towards this choice.
Bezos told Wired magazine that when he was considering whether to quit his job to start Amazon, the fear of regretting missing the Internet opportunity finally prompted him to make a choice: "Will I regret leaving Wall Street? No, will I regret not seizing the great opportunity of the rapid development of the Internet? Yes. "
Classic quotations 1. Failure is an important part of invention and creation. If you already know that this ingredient will work when you do the experiment, then this is not a real experiment. Therefore, if you want to invent and create, failure is indispensable and inevitable.
Jeff Bezos 2. There is no magic formula for success. The key is to stay ahead of others.
One thing you must learn in the countryside is how to be self-reliant. Do everything yourself. You can learn from this kind of self-reliance, and my grandfather is my role model: if something breaks down, you should fix it yourself. To achieve something you have never touched before, you must be tenacious and focused to the point where others may find it unreasonable.
As long as you are willing to invest time and energy in developing new skills, then you can do what you should do. If you only set foot in your field, your skills will be out of date.
We started with the customer, but now we just go back to the starting point. In order to serve our customers better, we learn all the necessary skills and develop and build all the necessary technologies.
Jeff Bezos 6. Your time is limited, don't waste it on repeating other people's lives. Don't be bound by dogma, which means that you live with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let other people's noisy opinions drown out your true inner voice. Most importantly, you should have the courage to listen to your intuition and heart-they know what you want to be to some extent, and everything else is secondary.
7. The greatest progress of mankind lies not in the discovery and invention of science and technology, but in how to use it to eliminate inequality.
Other information sponsored spacecraft According to the Wall Street Journal's 2011September 5, an unmanned spacecraft sponsored by Internet billionaire Bezos suddenly lost control during the test flight and had to be destroyed, which highlighted the great risks of private space enterprises. The spacecraft, which was developed by the private company Blue Origin LLC, began to deviate from the orbit and lost normal contact with the ground personnel during a suborbital flight at the company's West Texas launch center two weeks ago. Investigators are studying the found wreckage of the spaceship to find out the cause of the accident.
Jeff Bezos marched into the tablet 2065438+On September 7, 2002, Amazon brought new products such as Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire HD to the Los Angeles conference, among which Kindle Fire HD became the focus of media public opinion. Being compared with Nexus 7 and iPad is almost a doomed ending. In addition, people have different views on the market prospect of Kindle Fire HD.
20 13 On August 6th, Jeff Bezos bought Post Washington Post Group and announced that it would sell its newspaper distribution business including Washington post to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for $250 million. It is worth noting that Bezos will use his private identity this time instead of completing the transaction through Amazon.