‘Born to lose, live to win.’ This might be the motto of many of the most powerful entrepreneurs or leaders in the world. In 1964, Jackie, a high school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico, became pregnant at the age of 17 and gave birth to a baby boy. Back then, pregnancy and childbirth as a school student were not common in the American state of Mexico. Authorities expelled her from the school. She did not know what to do and felt shattered. Her father Lawrence Preston Gise intervened. The authorities eventually agreed to take her back. However, her husband abandoned her when the baby was four years old. Later, she married Miguel “Mike” Bezos. He adopted her four-year-old baby and named him Jeffrey Preston Bezos, whom the world later called Jeff Bezos. This is the story of Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man and the founder of Amazon, the world’s largest multinational technology company.
Jeff Bezos, who has assets worth Rs 14 lakh crore, said his life story in response to an antitrust hearing against Amazon before the House of Representatives Committee in the United States. “I’m Jeff Bezos. I started Amazon 26 years ago with the goal of making the most customer-centric technology company on earth” started Bezos his story of becoming the most powerful entrepreneur in the world from a childhood full of uncertainty and challenges.
Bezos says his inspiration is his mother, who continued to study despite the hardships. She went through the same situation any girl of her age would have gone through in such a situation. She worked on day and studied at night. “My mother came to class with me and two bags. One had books to study and the other one had diapers, food and anything that would keep me quiet.”
“I was four years old when my mother remarried. The good guy adopted me, loved me and taught me. Otherwise, I would have been living in New Mexico like any other American boy.” His father immigrated from Cuba at a time when parents used to send their young children to the United States fearing Fidel Castro. “My stepfather arrived in America alone. He didn’t know how to read or write English properly. But, together they raised me. One thing my mother used to tell me over and over again was to get up and try again during setbacks in life. Only then can you find your own way forward.” It was this advice that prompted Bezos, a teenager, to move on and dream big and eventually to become the owner of Amazon, the largest company in the world.
