Last updated on December 9, 2022 - My Free Marketing newsletter 👀
Jeff Bezos’ net worth is around $114 billion dollars right now, which isn’t the highest net worth he’s ever had. In previous years, Jeff Bezos has had a net worth of $150 billion, or even $200 billion! But since a lot of his net worth is tied up in his companies, it rises and falls with market fluctuations.
With hundreds of billions of dollars to his name, you might think that Jeff is the richest person in the world right now—right?
Nope!
Elon Musk’s net worth is usually bigger than Jeff Bezos net worth. Again, it depends on market fluctuations.
But net worth is just a number. No matter how the market is doing, Jeff Bezos’s businesses bring in a lot of cash. In this post, I’m going to dive deep into his businesses, how they make money, what they’re doing right, and how Jeff is building his business empire so we can get the full picture behind his net worth.
Let’s dive in.
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Everyone knows the story that Amazon started in a garage…
It’s a romanticized trope that startup culture loves to spread far and wide: Look at Amazon! The BILLION-dollar company started in a garage! If Jeff Bezos can do it, you can too!
The last part is true. If Jeff can do it, you can do it too.
But it’s worth remembering that the journey to create Amazon didn’t come without some help and hiccups along the way.
Which is a great lesson in itself. As entrepreneurs, we can’t do it alone.
These are some of the milestones that helped make—and almost break—Amazon along the way:
So even though Amazon’s humble beginnings started in a garage, the full picture shows a bit of a different story. The cash injection from his parents helped start the company off on a strong foot, and a quick three years to IPO meant the company could rake in even more money to fund further growth.
Even with help, it still took Amazon 7 years to turn its first profit!
SEVEN years.
A lot of entrepreneurs I see will give up in less than 7 months if they don’t see a profit.
MANY companies are not profitable when they first start. It doesn’t mean that the company isn’t making any money, it means that the money is being put back into the business to grow and expand it.
Jeff clearly started Amazon with growth in mind.
It started as a bookstore, but he always planned to turn it into an ‘Everything Store.’ To achieve that growth, he had to put a lot of cash into the company in the first few years to create a worldwide operation.
There’s a few choices Amazon has made along the way to stay relevant over the years and come out on top.
The great news is, most businesses can do these things. Or at least, learn from these lessons and make similar choices to always be improving their business.
Here’s what Jeff did to put and keep Amazon on the map:
Even though Jeff isn’t the CEO of Amazon anymore and doesn’t run the day-to-day stuff happening at the office, he still makes a lot of money from the company as a shareholder (he still owns 10% of the company).
But besides the net worth Jeff Bezos accumulates from Amazon, his total wealth is not just the result of Amazon's success.
He owns and operates a few other companies, which contribute to his overall net worth as well. But, since these companies are privately held, we can’t know for sure how much he makes from them.
But for interest’s sake, let’s dive in.
Since Blue Origin is a space exploration company, there’s a lot of risks associated with it.
The company's goal is to develop technologies that will enable human beings to live and work in space. It’s currently focused on a bunch of projects, like the New Shepard spacecraft and the Blue Moon lunar lander.
Just like how Amazon wasn’t profitable in the beginning because a ton of money was being reinvested back into the company to grow and expand it, that’s probably what Jeff is doing with Blue Origin today.
Right now, it’s not necessarily meant to generate income. It’s meant to be innovative.
In 2018, Jeff announced that he would sell $1 billion worth of Amazon stock EACH YEAR to fund Blue Origin's operations. So he’s clearly investing a significant amount of resources into the development.
Like Blue Origin, The Washington Post is also a privately held company, so we can’t know for sure how much money Jeff makes from it.
He bought it in 2013 for $250 million, and the company has likely generated significant revenue and profits since then.
Since he bought it, Jeff has focused on expanding the newspaper's online presence which has expanded its reach and influence. With an online presence also comes online advertising, which has likely helped bring in a lot of revenue and profit for the paper.
Bezos Expeditions is Jeff’s personal venture capital firm, and it invests in a variety of startups and established companies.
He started it in 1998, and it has made a number of successful investments over the years. Some of the companies Jeff has invested in through Bezos Expeditions include Google, Twitter, and Airbnb.
These investments have likely generated BIG returns, and have definitely boosted Jeff Bezos net worth.
Plus, Bezos Expeditions also invests in charitable causes. In 2018, Bezos and his former wife MacKenzie announced that they would donate $2 billion to charitable causes through Bezos Expeditions.
This philanthropic activity is likely to have had a positive impact not only on Jeff’s public image, but on his overall net worth, too.
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One response to “Jeff Bezos Net Worth: How He Makes Billions (Not ALL From Amazon)”
Wow, that so good or him, one day I am gonna be like him