Long before he built a trillion-dollar empire, Jeff Bezos was just a kid mucking about on his grandfather's farm, and it was there, solving everyday problems on his own, that he first learned to rely on himself.
A Burger Job That Taught Him About Customers
At 16, Bezos took a job flipping burgers at McDonald's for $2.69 an hour. The minimum-wage gig turned out to be an early masterclass in two things that would define his career later, keeping customers happy and running operations smoothly.
Spotting the Internet Boom
By 1994, the web was growing at a staggering pace, with usage climbing by thousands of percent every year. Watching that curve, Bezos became convinced that shopping itself was headed online. He tested the idea against a simple thought experiment, would he regret at 80 not having chased this opportunity. The answer was yes, and that single question was enough to push him to walk away from a comfortable job and move to Seattle to start an online bookstore.
From a Garage Startup Called Cadabra to Amazon
The company was first called Cadabra before it was renamed Amazon. Its first office was nothing more than a garage, and money was so tight that there wasn't even a proper table to pack books on. Bezos and his small team packed orders sitting on the floor and often carried the parcels to the post office themselves.
The Principles He Leaned On in Tough Times
Bezos has often said life is too short to spend time with people who can't find a way through hard times, and that it's better to stick with those who look for solutions instead of complaining about problems. He also believed a company's brand works much like a person's reputation, built not overnight but through consistently doing difficult work honestly. On top of that, he held that the surest way out of any tough spot is fresh thinking and new ideas.
From $112 Billion to Over $200 Billion
By 2018, Bezos had become the richest person on the planet with a fortune of $112 billion, and by 2020, during the Covid pandemic, his net worth had crossed $200 billion. Even after personal setbacks, including his 2019 divorce from MacKenzie Scott, he kept his business growing without a hitch.
