Jeff Bezos

Business Personality

Jeff Bezos is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Amazon.com, one of the pillars of Internet e-commerce. Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with degrees in computer science and electrical engineering. After a few years in New York as a financial analyst, Bezos moved to Seattle and founded Amazon.com in 1994. Through innovation and sheer business savvy, Bezos built up Amazon.com and became one of the world's richest people in the process. Named Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1999, Bezos became a celebrity entrepreneur, known for his buoyant personality as much as his financial know-how. With Bezos at the helm, Amazon.com weathered financial ups and downs and expanded from selling books and CDs to a wide variety of consumer goods. In 2000 Bezos helped found Blue Origin, a side project whose goal is to build reusable rocket ships to encourage tourism in outer space.

Extra credit: In 2001 Bezos appeared in television commercials for the fast food chain Taco Bell.

Other big names in the high-tech business include Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Paul Allen.