Factbox: Jeff Bezos’ journey from suburban garage to edge of space

July 20 (Reuters) – U.S. business mogul Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), is set to launch into space aboard his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket on Tuesday, nine days after rival Richard Branson became the first billionaire astronaut.

Here is a look at Bezos’ life, from building an ecommerce startup in a garage in the suburbs of Seattle, to launching into space, a dream the entrepreneur has had since he was 5 years old.

1964: On Jan. 12, Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen is born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Jacklyn Gise and Ted Jorgensen and is later adopted by Miguel Bezos

1986: Graduates from Princeton University after studying electrical engineering and computer science

1990: Joins investment bank D.E. Shaw & Co, soon named the firm’s youngest senior vice president

1993: Marries MacKenzie Tuttle, whom he met at D.E. Shaw

1994: Bezos, who called himself a “garage inventor” from a young age, quits D.E. Shaw, moves to Seattle to open a virtual bookstore out of a garage

1995: Amazon.com sells its first book, begins to rapidly expand and diversify

2000: Bezos sets up his rocket startup Blue Origin

2006: Amazon introduces cloud computing service Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Unbox, the original video programming service to be later renamed to Amazon Prime Video

2007: Amazon releases Kindle, a portable digital reading device

2012: Blue Origin begins flight testing New Shepard

2019: Jeff and MacKenzie file for divorce after 25 years of marriage; the couple has four children together

2021: Bezos steps down as CEO of Amazon on July 5, but remains executive chairman of ecommerce giant, with a net worth of over $206 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Will Dunham

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Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/jeff-bezos-journey-suburban-garage-edge-space-2021-07-20/