Jeff Bezos

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Jeff Bezos recommends you take a step back and reflect on what matters. Like the roof over your head, or the sound of a child's laugh, or the $600,000 you make every single day.
—The New Yorker[1]
The real life Lex Luthor.
Mind your own
Business
Icon business.png
"You're fired!"

Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos (1964–) is an American businessman and billionaire. He is the former CEO and current Executive Chairman of the Board of Amazon, which gave him money to buy the The Washington Post and found private space company Blue Origin, among other less successful business ventures. (The WaPo has lost tens of millions of dollars a year under Bezos' ownership, and 24 years after founding Blue Origin, Bezos described it as "not a good business yet.")[2][3] As of the end of 2024, he is the third richest person in the world. He was once the single richest person in the world, beginning in 2017 (when he surpassed Bill Gates),[4] but this is prone to fluctuation; at various points he's been overtaken by others such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.[5][6] But that's no matter. His yacht still has a yacht.[7][8]

If reptilian conspiracy theories were ever proven to be true, he would be a known cannibal on account of eating an iguana.[9] However, one can't rule out that he may instead be a human who managed against all odds to outdo the reptilians, thus eating lizards as a display of dominance. One reptilian got back at Bezos for this with a petition demanding he use his wealth to buy and eat the famous Mona Lisa painting.[10][11]

Business ventures[edit]

Amazon[edit]

Amazon is a company Bezos founded in 1994, originally as an online bookstore.[12] It was briefly named "Cadabra", but this sounded too much like "cadaver",[13] which is another word for "corpse". By some accounts from the future, that would've been appropriate.[14] For now, it lives as much more than a bookstore; it expanded into selling computer games and music in 1998,[12] then first turned a proper profit in 2003, gradually expanding into a more generalized online shopping giant.[13] E-commerce remains its flagship operation, but they have a hand in many industries.[12] Overall, Bezos sees it as a technology company, and Amazon often integrates sci-fi trickery like AI or robotics into its operations.[12] (Though some say it's less "sci-fi" and more "dystopian".[15][16])

About 75 percent of American consumers have an Amazon Prime subscription.[17] This sort of prominence places them among the biggest targets for populists scrutinizing corporate malfeasance, cast as something like a Walmart equivalent for the Internet age. Unlike Walmart, they will send a drone carrying a lithium-ion battery to your house.[18]

Twitter army[edit]

Amazon used to have an official army of Twitter posters called "FC Ambassadors" (with "FC" standing for "fulfillment centers"), who would assure you they had never seen anyone working for the company urinate in a bottle. It went about as well one would expect.[19][20]

Workers' rights abuses[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Workers' rights

In 2021, The New York Times released an investigative report on the company short-changing their workers’ paychecks.[21] Another was in 2023, when Amazon workers in Saudi Arabia were deceived and exploited.[22]

The Washington Post[edit]

It's time to give the elites a bigger say in choosing the president.
—The Washington Post, 2020[23]

On August 5, 2013, he purchased the Washington Post in a $250 million USD deal.[24] His tenure at the Post has been contentious, growing in increased scrutiny in the 2020s. For the first time ever, the Post refused to endorse a candidate in the 2024 United States election. Because of this, it had several long-time contributors and writers resign in protest.[25]

Blue Origin[edit]

Any billionaire can have a super yacht, but Bezos has a space program. Blue Origin Enterprises, L.P. was founded in 2000 and relied on financial patronage. In 2021 a Blue Origin rocket carried Bezos and four others 100 km above sea level, letting him say he had been in space for several minutes. Other sub-orbital flights followed. In 2025 Blue Origin successfully launched a New Glenn rocket into orbit around Earth. The company talks about building a business park on a space station called Orbital Reef. Blue Origin has received some contracts from NASA and the US Air Force, and has charged some of its space tourists, but as of 2025 almost all its funds appear to have come from Bezos and his friends.

The Blue Alchemist program proposes to make solar cells out of lunar regolith (dust), which could power activities on the Moon.[26]

Blue Origin has spun off startups such as Interlune which proposes to harvest Helium-3 from the Moon.[27] Helium-3 for nuclear fusion is out of favour so Interlune proposes to sell it to a company that cools quantum computers instead.[28]

Politics[edit]

In 2025, Bezos enforced that the opinion columns of The Washington Post, which he owns, would be narrowly focused on defending "two pillars: personal liberties and free markets".[29] This made Cato happy,[30] and suggests he would likely identify as something in the realm of a classical liberal or libertarian. Don't ask which — personal liberties or free markets — take precedence if/when they're at odds, please.[31]

Seattle City Council[edit]

As of 2019, Seattle had a socialist (more precisely a Trotskyist Socialist Alternative member) on the city council by the name of Kshama Sawant. Bezos evidently didn't appreciate this very much, since Amazon (both founded and headquartered in Seattle) dumped some $1.5 million into unseating her and Lisa Herbold during the 2019 Seattle City Council election.[32] Both Herbold and Sawant were re-elected nevertheless.

Bloomberg 2020[edit]

In 2019, Bezos reportedly called up fellow billionaire Michael Bloomberg to encourage him to run for President, and he later did.[33] This little bit of billionaire solidarity offered great foil for rabble-rouser Bernie Sanders,[34] who nonetheless never made his way to the White House. Sanders had made Bezos out as an icon of economic inequality, and in 2018 proposed a bill named after him (the "Bezos Act") aimed at forcing companies like Amazon to either raise wages or pay taxes equivalent to the welfare their employees were using.[35][36] One of Bloomberg's own opinion writers suggested in 2018 that Sanders's critiques struck more of a nerve with Amazon than Donald Trump's did, even as the latter held a more powerful office.[37]

Attempted recruitment by EA et al.[edit]

Several groups in the TESCREAL space have attempted to recruit Bezos (or his wallet). Kelsey Piper's first story for Vox suggested that Bezos should follow the principles of Effective Altruism (EA) when donating his wealth (if that sounded complicated, her friends would be glad to help).[38] In 2022, Bezos praised rationalist podcaster Dwarkesh Patel.[39][40][41] In 2025 he reportedly invested in a life-extension startup called Altos Labs (life extension and longevity is often a transhuman project).[42] Previously he invested in a company exploring treatments for senescence called Unity Biotechnology with Peter Thiel. Bezos does not seem to be a frequent supporter like Jaan Tallinn, Peter Thiel, or Elon Musk.

Scottish science-fiction writer Charlie Stross listed Bezos as one of the billionaires trying to bring 20th century science fiction to life with no awareness that some of it was a cautionary tale and the rest was written to entertain readers not provide a serious technical roadplan.[43]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. The New Yorker (May 13, 2020). "In @tnyshouts, Jeff Bezos recommends you take a step back and reflect on what matters. Like the roof over your head, or the sound of a child’s laugh, or the $600,000 you make every single day." Twitter.
  2. Jeremy Barr, Washington Post announces new subscription plans in bid to boost revenue, Washington Post, May 22, 2024
  3. Rich Smith, Blue Origin Prepares for Layoffs. Here's What Space Stock Investors Need to Know, Motley Fool, Feb 22, 2025
  4. Robert Frank (October 27, 2017). "Jeff Bezos is now the richest man in the world with $90 billion". CNBC.
  5. (January 7, 2021). "Elon Musk becomes world's richest person as wealth tops $185bn". BBC News.
  6. Theo Burman (May 22, 2025). "Mark Zuckerberg Overtakes Jeff Bezos in Global Billionaire Ranking". Newsweek.
  7. Allison Morrow (May 10, 2021). "Jeff Bezos' superyacht is so big it needs its own yacht". CNN Business.
  8. Emily Burack (August 11, 2022). "Rotterdam Now Won't Dismantle a Historic Bridge for Jeff Bezos's Superyacht". Town & Country Magazine. Quote: "Along with making history as the largest sailing yacht, Bezos's Y271 is the longest yacht to have ever been built in the Netherlands, and Oceano's largest ever superyacht. It is also rumored to come with a 'support yacht,' also called a shadow vessel. The superyacht likely cost more than $500 million to build, per Bloomberg."
  9. Peter Farquhar (March 13, 2018). "Here's a picture of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos eating an iguana". Business Insider.
  10. Jody Serrano (June 19, 2021). "Thousands Have Signed an Online Petition for Jeff Bezos to Buy and Eat the Mona Lisa". Gizmodo.
  11. Anna P. Kambhampaty (June 18, 2021). "Why Do People Want Jeff Bezos to Buy and Eat the Mona Lisa?". The New York Times.
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Christopher McFadden (2021). "A very brief history of Amazon: the everything store". Interesting Engineering.
  13. 13.0 13.1 Colby Hopkins (May 1, 2023). "The History of Amazon and its Rise to Success". The Michigan Journal of Economics (University of Michigan).
  14. Isobel Asher Hamilton (July 5, 2021). "As Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos was obsessed with the company's 'inevitable' death". Business Insider.
  15. Lauren Kaori Gurley (September 20, 2021). "Amazon's AI Cameras Are Punishing Drivers for Mistakes They Didn't Make". Vice.
  16. Owen Bellwood (September 4, 2024). "Amazon Drivers Complain Their Ability To Sing Along With The Radio Is Being Stifled: Report". Jalopnik.
  17. Alex Bitter (April 17, 2024). "Americans are obsessed with Amazon Prime, and it shows". Business Insider.
  18. AJ Dellinger (May 20, 2025). "FAA Gives Amazon’s Drones the Go-Ahead to Carry Lithium-Ion Batteries". Gizmodo.
  19. Jon Brodkin (January 26, 2022). "Amazon ends widely mocked scheme that turned workers into Twitter 'ambassadors'". Ars Technica.
  20. Mary Hanbury (August 16, 2019). "Amazon's army of tweeting warehouse workers backfired spectacularly this week after a thread about working conditions went viral". Business Insider.
  21. A Hard-Hitting Investigative Report Into Amazon Shows That Workers’ Needs Were Neglected In Favor Of Getting Goods Delivered Quickly, Forbes.com
  22. Saudi Arabia: Migrants workers who toiled in Amazon warehouses were deceived and exploited, Amnesty International
  23. (February 21, 2020). "'WaPo' Changes Headline Calling For Elites To Choose President". MediaPost.
  24. James O'Toole (August 5, 2013). Amazon's Bezos buys Washington Post for $250 million, CNN Business.
  25. Hadas Gold (October 28, 2024). Three Washington Post editorial board members step down amid wave of canceled subscriptions over non-endorsement, CNN.
  26. Blue Alchemist Hits Major Milestone Toward Permanent and Sustainable Lunar Infrastructure, Blue Origin, September 10, 2025
  27. Mehanaz Yakub, Mining the moon’s helium, Cim Magazine, September 25, 2025
  28. Greg De Temmerman, The helium bubble: Prospects for 3He-fuelled nuclear fusion, Joule, Volume 5, Issue 6, 16 June 2021, pages 1312-1315 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2021.05.003

    As neutrons can damage materials and limit their lifetime in the extreme environment of a fusion reactor, other potential fuels have been proposed that would strongly reduce or eliminate neutron formation. Among them, helium-3 (3He), one of the isotopes of helium, is often mentioned, motivated by the discovery that the moon contains significant amounts of this species, although it is virtually non-existent on Earth. As such, helium-3 is a reason often mentioned to go back to the moon and exploit its resources. Unfortunately, in many aspects, 3He fusion is much harder to achieve.

  29. (February 26, 2025). "Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos says opinion pages will defend free market and 'personal liberties'". PBS.
  30. Ryan Bourne and Sophia Bagley (February 28, 2025). "Jeff Bezos and A Pro-Liberty Newspaper?". Cato Institute.
  31. Robert McCoy (March 17, 2025). "What Jeff Bezos Won’t Let Opinion Columnists Tell You About Corporate Overreach". The Progressive.
  32. Daniel Beekman and Jim Brunner (October 15, 2019). "Amazon drops additional $1 million-plus into Seattle City Council races, with ballots out this week". The Seattle Times. (Archived).
  33. Andy Kiersz (November 9, 2019). "Jeff Bezos reportedly called Michael Bloomberg and asked him if he would run for president earlier this year". Business Insider.
  34. Kyle Balluck (November 10, 2019). "Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez see ‘class solidarity’ in report Bezos asked Bloomberg to run". The Hill.
  35. Jillian D'Onfro (September 5, 2018). "Bernie Sanders introduces the Bezos Act, slamming Amazon's low wages". CNBC.
  36. Kit Norton (August 28, 2018). "Sanders to introduce 'Bezos Bill' next month". VTDigger.
  37. Shira Ovide (August 30, 2018). "Amazon Doesn't Mind Trump, But Bernie Sanders Strikes a Nerve". Bloomberg Opinion.
  38. https://www.vox.com/2018/9/21/17880000/jeff-bezos-amazon-philanthropy-gift-2-billion
  39. https://beginnermaps.com/how-dwarkesh-a-cs-grad-started-a-podcast-and-blog-that-counts-jeff-bezos-as-a-reader/
  40. https://x.com/JeffBezos/status/1514689258535145474 archived https://archive.ph/PRF8p
  41. https://www.theojaffee.com/p/9-dwarkesh-patel

    Theo: With the people you talk to, would you say you're adjacent to the rationalist community?

    Dwarkesh: Yeah.

  42. Antonio Regalado, "Meet Altos Labs, Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever," MIT Technology Review, September 4, 2021
  43. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-the-science-fiction-they-grew-up-on-real/