Jeffrey Preston Bezos (born January 12, 1964) is the American 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. He was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 1999. In 2008, he was selected by U.S. News & World Report as one of America's Best Leaders.

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's 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. When a toddler, he tried dismantling his crib with a screwdriver.

Bezos was born when his mother, Jackie Bezos, was still in her teens. Her marriage to his father lasted little more than a year. She remarried when Bezos was five. Bezos's stepfather, Miguel Bezos, born in Cuba, emigrated to the United States alone at age 15 and worked his way through the University of Albuquerque. When he married Bezos's mother, the family moved to Houston, Texas, and Miguel Bezos became an engineer for Exxon. Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary in Houston from 4th to 6th grade.