With over 100 billion US dollars, Jeff Bezos posts a net worth in the triple-digit billions and is now considered the richest man in the world, after overtaking the former number one among the richest people in history, namely Bill Gates. The American founded the online retailer Amazon in 1994, which earned him billions and to which he owes the title "the richest man in the world."

How Did Jeffrey Preston Bezos Become "the Richest Man in the World"?

His parents divorced shortly after his birth, and when he was four years old, his mother married a Cuban exile. The Bezos family moved to Houston, where Jeff's stepfather Mike worked for the oil company Exxon. Jeff first attended River Oaks Elementary School. When the family moved to Miami, however, he switched to Miami Palmetto Senior High School. When he later went to Princeton University, he studied electrical engineering and computer science, earning a Bachelor of Science. Back then, nobody could yet guess that he would one day be the richest man in the world. After his studies, he became an employee at the startup Fitel, and two years later he moved to Bankers Trust as a product manager. Jeff Bezos realized, however, that the internet was growing rapidly. He came up with the decisive idea of founding Amazon in order to sell books there. Within just two months, he had weekly sales of 20,000 dollars, and so his earnings kept rising, and he eventually became the richest man in the world. In 2000 he founded the space company "Blue Origin," and in 2013 he bought the "Washington Post" for 250 million dollars.Richest man in the world

What Problems Does the Richest Man in the World Have Today?

Jeff Bezos is no longer together with his wife MacKenzie, who now works as a writer. Recently, however, Jeff set up a charitable organization with his wife. But the real problem is that Washington, the state in which the Bezos family lives, is a so-called "community property state." That means that the money earned during the entire marriage is split in two. So the title "the richest man in the world" could soon be a thing of the past. After all, Amazon was founded about a year after the wedding. Accordingly, MacKenzie has a rough claim to a hefty 60 billion dollars. That would make MacKenzie the richest woman in the world, and Bill Gates, with his roughly 99 billion US dollars, would once again be the richest man in the world.