Essay About Jeffrey Preston Bezos and His Leadership Qualities

Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American who was born on 12th January 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He attended River Oaks Elementary School from his fourth to sixth grade which was situated in Houston. He attended Miami Palmetto High School which was in Florida where he received a silver knight award after he had participated in the student science program at the University of Florida. In the year 1986 Bezos graduated from the Princeton University with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and electrical engineering. While at the University he was elected to be Tau Beta Pi where he served the position of the students for the exploration and space development. He showed interest in science, technology, and mechanics while he was still young when he dismantled his crib using a screwdriver. Bezos one day rigged and electronic alarm so as his younger siblings would not use his room (Stone and Larkin).

After Bezos had graduated from the Princeton University, he worked on Wall Street in the field of computer science. He later worked for Fitel Company and built for them an international trade network. Other companies that Bezos worked for were Bankers Trust and Hedge Fund Company. Bezos is an investor, computer scientist, philanthropist and a retail entrepreneur. His other business interests are newspapers and aerospace.

Bezos is known to be the founder, Chief Executive Officer and chairman of the Amazon.com which is the worlds biggest online retailer company. Bezos founded Amazon.com in the year 1994 after making several visits from New York to Seattle whereby he ended up writing the Amazon business plan. The first place where Bezos setup the company was in his garage. He later expanded its operations into a two bedroom house which was equipped with three Sun Micro stations and then established a test site. The Amazon Company started as an internet merchant of books which was later expanded to provide other products and services.Amazon.com company went public in 1997.It is currently considered to be the worlds biggest provider of services that are related to cloud infrastructure and also have the largest internet sales on the World Wide Web (Brandt).

Bezos also founded Blue Origin in the year 2000 which was a spaceflight startup company. The starting of the company was partially influenced by his interest in space travel. Bezos main reason for founding the company was to enable any person to go into space, decrease costs and increase the safety of spaceflight. The Blue Origin Company started having test flights in 2015.Bezos wanted to evacuate people from the earth to preserve it through building space hotels, amusement parks, and colonies for 2-3 million inhabitants. According to Bezos space is full of resources and foresee a great inversion that will result in the emergence of space commercialization that will continue for hundreds of years. The manufacturing that will occur in space will help reduce pollution on earth according to Bezos. Blue Origin is a flight test program of New Shepard that is working towards carrying test passengers in 2017 and later start commercial flights in 2018 (Johnson) .

Bezos bought The Washington Post newspaper in 2013 for $250 million whereby many business investments are managed through his expeditions. He became the worlds richest individual with an estimated net worth of $90 billion after the opening of the financial markets which made him surpass Bill Gates but later after the Amazons stock had dropped he went to the second position of the worlds richest person. Bezos has also invested in Google where Bezos was the first shareholder in 1998 after investing $250,000.He also invested in Unity Biotechnology which is a life-extension firm that aims that slowing or stopping the aging process.

Qualities That Make Bezos Successful

Jeff Bezos has the leadership quality of prioritizing on customer service. He puts the customer as the priority. During staff meetings, he ensures there is a vacant chair which serves as a reminder of the person who is not present at the meeting, and that is the customer. It enables him and his team to be cautious about the decisions they make and how they would affect the client. Bezos shows empathy which is an important quality to be possessed by professionals. His boldness and backbone have helped him to serve the companies well. According to Bezos lack of freedom to give opinions and dispute will not lead to innovation. Bezos success can be attributed to his ability to have wild ideas. He is well known for thinking outside the box and making crazy decisions to enhance innovation. Bezos had portrayed his innovative skills since when he was young. Bezos desire to create something new increases with time. His innovative skills helped him create the online portal that provides everything and anything an individual wants. Bezos is a realist, which is one of the qualities of a successful entrepreneur. He weighs and thinks of all possibilities and outcomes of a given situation. He makes his decisions basing on his assessment. Bezos has the personality traits of being a risk taker. He takes high risks but in a manner that is calculated (Achath).

Works Cited

Achath, Sati. 12 Qualities of Highly Successful People: And How You Can Develop These 12 Qualities. BookBaby, 2015.

Brandt, Richard L. One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com. Portfolio, 2014.

Johnson, Drew D. International Directory of Company Histories: Volume 193. 2018.

Stone, Brad, and Pete Larkin. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. 2013.