THE RISE AND RISE OF THE BEZOS EMPIRE

In 1996, two years after Amazon.com began in Jeff’s garage, it was the world’s biggest book dealership, with a million titles.

In 1999, two years after Amazon’s listing on the stock exchange, Jeff was on Forbes’ list of dollar billionaires.

By 2000 Jeff had started Blue Origin, his private aerospace manufacturing and space-flight services company.

When the dotcom bubble burst in 2001, his fortune shrank to $2 billion (then about R24 billion).

By 2005 Jeff’s companies had recovered and he launched Amazon Prime, a successful subscription service.

In 2006 he added cloud computing services with the introduction of Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is now worth more than Amazon’s retail section.

In 2007 Amazon introduced the first e-reader, Kindle, and AmazonFresh, a grocery delivery service.

In 2010 Bezos’ net worth almost doubled within a year when his e-book sales outstripped hardcover sales.

In 2013 he bought the Washington Post newspaper for $250 million (then about R2,6 billion). One of America’s oldest and most respected newspapers, it runs at a loss. Buying it was Bezos’ way of showing his faith in the future of traditional print media.

In June last year Amazon bought the Whole Foods grocery company for $13,7 billion (then about R178,1 billion).

In October last year a spike in Amazon’s share price added $10 billion (then about R140 billion) to Bezos’ worth in a single day. A month after that, his net worth exceeded the $100 billion (R1,2 trillion) mark.