Timeline

The life and the companies, in order. Months and days are given where the record supports them; disputed or approximate dates are flagged.

1964 — Born in Albuquerque

Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen is born 12 January 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

1968 — Adoption; becomes Bezos

Jacklyn Jorgensen marries Miguel “Mike” Bezos; Mike adopts four-year-old Jeffrey, whose surname becomes Bezos.

1982 — Valedictorian, Miami Palmetto

Graduates as valedictorian and National Merit Scholar from Miami Palmetto High School; enters Princeton that fall.

1986 — Princeton, EECS

Graduates Princeton University summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in electrical engineering and computer science (after starting in physics).

Late 1980s–1994 — Wall Street

Works at Fitel and Bankers Trust, then joins the quantitative hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co., rising to senior vice president. (Exact start year varies across sources — see Early Life & D.E. Shaw.) Marries colleague Mackenzie Tuttle in 1993.

5 July 1994 — Amazon incorporated

Leaves D.E. Shaw, drives to Seattle, and incorporates Cadabra, Inc. in Washington State — renamed Amazon.com, Inc. within months.

16 July 1995 — Amazon launches

Amazon.com goes live from a Bellevue garage; the first book sold is Douglas Hofstadter’s Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies.

15 May 1997 — IPO

Amazon goes public at $18 a share. The first shareholder letter declares: “It’s Day 1.”

2000 — Blue Origin founded

Bezos founds the space company Blue Origin, funded from his own pocket; its motto: Gradatim Ferociter — “step by step, ferociously.”

Q4 2001 — First profitable quarter

After the dot-com crash cuts the stock ~95%, Amazon posts its first profit (net income $5M on $1.12B revenue) — survival where peers died.

2005 — Prime launches

Amazon Prime debuts at $79/year with free two-day shipping — the loyalty flywheel begins.

2006 — AWS launches

S3 (March) and EC2 (August) launch Amazon Web Services, selling the company’s internal infrastructure to the world.

2007 — Kindle

The first Kindle e-reader launches in November, built by the secretive Lab126 team under Steve Kessel.

2012 — Kiva Systems

Amazon acquires warehouse-robotics maker Kiva Systems for $775M — the seed of the automated fulfillment empire.

5 August 2013 — Buys The Washington Post

Bezos announces a personal $250M purchase of The Washington Post (via Nash Holdings); the deal closes 1 October 2013.

2015 — Echo/Alexa; New Shepard lands

The Echo/Alexa line takes off — and on 23 November 2015, Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster lands propulsively, a reusable-rocketry milestone.

2017 — Whole Foods; world’s richest

Amazon acquires Whole Foods for $13.7B (closes 28 August 2017); Forbes and Bloomberg begin listing Bezos as the world’s richest person.

2018 — Day One Fund; HQ2 decided

The $2B Day One Fund launches (homelessness, preschools); the HQ2 search ends with Arlington, Virginia (the Long Island City plan is withdrawn in February 2019).

2019 — Divorce finalized

Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos’s divorce is finalized in April (announced January); she receives roughly 4% of Amazon’s stock.

2020 — Bezos Earth Fund

The $10B Bezos Earth Fund is announced in February to fight climate change.

5 July 2021 — Steps down as CEO

Exactly 27 years after incorporation, Bezos becomes Executive Chair; AWS chief Andy Jassy becomes CEO.

20 July 2021 — Flies to space

Bezos flies aboard New Shepard’s first crewed flight with Mark Bezos, Wally Funk (82), and Oliver Daemen (18) — ~11 minutes, past the Kármán line.

2022 — The Giving Pledge

Bezos signs the Giving Pledge (announced November 2022), committing the majority of his wealth to charity in his lifetime.

2023 — Move to Miami

Announces in November 2023 that he is relocating from Seattle to Miami.

2025 — New Glenn flies; wedding

Blue Origin’s orbital rocket New Glenn launches successfully for the first time (16 January 2025); Bezos marries Lauren Sánchez in Venice (June 2025).

Source notes

• Every entry is documented in the linked deep-dive pages (early-life-d-e-shaw.md through whats-next.md); see their Source notes for citations.
• Net-worth list entries are Forbes/Bloomberg dated listings, not standing facts — see methodology.md.
• Approximate or contested dates (D.E. Shaw start year) are flagged inline.

Limitations

• This is a highlights timeline, not an exhaustive chronology; company milestones are covered in depth on the company pages.
• Some dates (e.g., wedding, relocation) rest on press reporting rather than primary documents and are cited as such on the relevant pages.