SEATTLE, July 14 — The man who reshaped American retail and now reaches for the stars turns 62 today, a moment that finds Jeff Bezos as far from his Albuquerque beginnings as the New Shepard rocket is from the New Mexico desert where he was born. Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994 from a Seattle garage, has spent three decades building what became a $574 billion revenue juggernaut by 2024. The company started as an online bookstore.
It now dominates global e-commerce and cloud computing. Bezos stepped down as chief executive in 2021 but remains executive chairman, still very much in the room where decisions get made.
From Princeton to the stratosphere
Born Jeffrey Preston Bezos on January 12, 1964, he graduated Princeton in 1986 with dual degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. Eight years later came Amazon. Twenty-one years after that, his suborbital vehicle New Shepard first flew in 2015.
On July 20, 2021, Bezos climbed aboard that same vehicle as part of its first crew, a ride that lasted just past the Kármán line before parachuting back to West Texas dust. Blue Origin, the space company he founded in 2000, has consumed roughly $1 billion annually from his personal fortune.
The company’s BE-4 engine, in development since 2011, now powers both Blue Origin’s own New Glenn rocket and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur. Bezos has stated plainly that Blue Origin’s goal is nothing less than enabling millions of people to live and work in space.
Washington, lawsuits, and labor
Bezos purchased The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, adding a major newspaper to a portfolio that already included the world’s largest online retailer. His involvement in space policy turned litigious in 2021, when Blue Origin sued NASA over the Human Landing System contract. A federal court dismissed the lawsuit.
Back on Earth, Bezos has faced sustained criticism over Amazon’s labor practices. A 2021 unionization effort at an Alabama warehouse failed, but the scrutiny has not let up.
His net worth stood at $195 billion as of February 2025, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. By nightfall in Seattle, the birthday candles will be lit at a house that sits on the other side of a very long arc — from a boy born in Albuquerque to a man whose company generated more revenue last year than the GDP of most nations.
What comes next for Blue Origin, and whether the BE-4 engine will carry the company past its competitors, remains the open question as Bezos enters his 63rd year.
