Jeff Bezos: Journey of world’s richest man from suburban garage to edge of space – Mint

Bezos’s Blue Origin company will launch its first crewed mission on its New Shepard rocket on July 20.

Bezos and three crewmates are due to fly from a desert site in West Texas on an 11-minute trip to the edge of space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard, a 60-foot-tall (18.3 meters) and fully autonomous rocket-and-capsule combo. The flight represents an important milestone in the establishment of the space tourism industry.

Blue Origin on Tuesday tweeted, “Our astronauts have completed training and are a go for launch”.

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-year-old.

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

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

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

1993: Married 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 e-commerce giant, with a net worth of over $206 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.