#19 Jeff Bezos

Age: 46yrs

Birth Place: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Industry: online retail

Influence: Revolutionized E-Commerce

Net Worth: $8.7 billion

Why they made the list…

Jeff Bezos was born in 1964 and is the founder of the president and the chief executive officer as well as the Chairman of the board for one of the most popular and well-known websites/e-commerce sites in the world, Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos mother was just a teenage girl when he was born in Albuquerque New Mexico, she married his father which lasted only one year in total, and when Jeff was just five years old she remarried the man he recalls his father Miguel Bezos. They moved to Texas and Miguel became an engineer for Exxon. Jeff Bezos was very interested in scientific projects at an early age and got into a lot of trouble by reading up small electric alarms to keep his siblings out of his bedroom. He managed to persuade his parents to convert their garage into his own personal laboratory, which suited him just fine.

He went on to be very highly awarded through his school and college years and he was awarded an honorary doctorate in science and technology from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. After finally graduating from Princeton University, Jeff Bezos decided he wanted to work in computer science field and began working on Wall Street. In 1994 after a bright idea whilst on a cross-country trip from New York to Seattle Jeff Bezos came up with a business plan for what he called, is on. He managed to get some backing and started Internet business that very year and as we know it is now one of the most successful e-commerce sites in the world. Amazon.com currently has a revenue of around $25 billion not bad the saying he came up with the idea in the back of a car on a road trip.