After conquering Earth, Bezos eyes new frontier in space
WASHINGTON: Jeff Bezos sets his sights on a new frontier in space in the coming days after building a gargantuan business empire that has in many ways conquered the Earth.
His journey into space aboard a reusable rocket built by his firm Blue Origin comes just two weeks after he stepped aside as chief executive of Amazon, which grew from a garage start-up into one of the world’s most formidable businesses.
Bezos, 57, remains executive chair at the technology and ecommerce colossus he founded 27 years ago. But he is clearly looking to even loftier ambitions.
With a fortune worth more than US$200 billion, Bezos has been at or near the top of the world’s richest people, even after his divorce settlement.
He owns some 10 per cent of Amazon, a behemoth with a presence in dozens of countries and some 1.3 million employees.
But Bezos often points to his humble beginnings: born to a teenage mother in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and adopted at the age of 4 by his Cuban immigrant stepfather.
Bezos was attracted by computer science when the IT industry was in its infancy and studied engineering at Princeton University.
After graduating, he put his skills to work on Wall Street, where by 1990 he had risen to be a senior vicepresident at investment firm D.E. Shaw.
But about four years later, he surprised peers by leaving his high-paid position to open an online bookseller called Amazon.com, backed by money from his parents.
In his parting letter to staff, Bezos said the company succeeded by following his mantra: “Keep inventing, and don’t despair when at first the idea looks crazy.”
Bezos often recounts the early days at Amazon, when he packed orders himself and drove boxes to the post office.
Today, Amazon has a market value of more than US$1.8 trillion. It posted 2020 annual revenues of US$386 billion from operations in e-commerce, cloud computing, groceries, artificial intelligence, streaming media and more.
Bezos has been fascinated by space since watching the 1969
Apollo moon landing as a child and sees space as important to the future of the planet.
He has spoken about the possibility of humans living in space colonies, drawing ideas from science fiction writers and scientists.
“We humans have to go to space if we are going to continue to have a thriving civilisation,” Bezos told a 2019 CBS News interview.
“We have become big as a population, as a species, and this planet is relatively small. We see it in things like climate change and pollution and heavy industry. We are in the process of destroying this planet... we have to preserve this planet.”