Topic: Jeff Bezos

Time Person of the Year 1999

Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos (born January 12, 1964) is the founder, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Amazon.com. Bezos, a Tau Beta Pi graduate of Princeton University, worked as a financial analyst for D. E. Shaw & Co. before founding Amazon in 1994.

Bezos' maternal ancestors were settlers who lived in Texas, and over the generations had acquired a 25,000 acre (101 km2 or 39 miles2) ranch in Cotulla. Bezos' maternal grandfather was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque. He retired early to the ranch, where Bezos spent most summers of his youth, working with his grandfather at the enormously varied tasks essential to the operation. At an early age, he displayed a striking mechanical aptitude -as a toddler, he tried dismantling his crib with a screwdriver.