With a fortune largely tied to his 78.9 million shares of Amazon, the net worth of Jeff Bezos continues to be on the rise.
Just days ago, Amazon shares reached all-time highs after the company’s ambitious acquisition of Whole Foods. This puts Bezos just $4 billion away from displacing Bill Gates as the world’s number one billionaire – and if the stock continues upwards, he could take the title any day.
ALL STREAMS LEAD TO AMAZON
Jeff Bezos makes investments and acquisitions through multiple vehicles:
Amazon makes acquisitions and investments that relate to the company’s core business and future ambitions. This includes acquisitions of Whole Foods ($13.7 billion in 2017), Zappos.com ($1.2 billion in 2009), Twitch.tv ($970 million in 2014), and Kiva Systems ($780 million in 2012). It also includes investments in everything form failed dot-com company Kozmo.com (2000) to Twilio, which successfully IPO’d in 2016.
Bezos Expeditions manages Jeff Bezos’ venture capital investments. Over the years, this venture arm has put money into Twitter, Domo, Juno Therapeutics, Workday, General Fusion, Rethink Robotics, Business Insider, MakerBot, and Stack Overflow. More recent investments include GRAIL, a startup that recently raised over $900 million to cure cancer before it happens, as well as EverFi, an edtech startup.
Jeff Bezos also invests money on a personal level. He was an angel investor in Google in 1998, and has also put money in Uber and Airbnb. (Note: these last two companies are listed on the Bezos Expeditions website, but on Crunchbase they are listed as personal investments.)
Nash Holdings LLC is the private company owned by Bezos that bought The Washington Post for $250 million.
Bezos Family Foundation is run by Jeff Bezos’ parents, and is funded through Amazon stock. It focuses on early education, and has also made an investment in LightSail Education’s $11 million Series B round.
It’s also worth noting that Jeff Bezos is the founder of Blue Origin, an aerospace company that is competing with SpaceX in mankind’s final frontier.
EARLY GROCERY AMBITIONS
While the Whole Foods acquisition is the latest talking point for Amazon, it is certainly not the company’s first foray into the groceries business.
Interestingly enough, the company actually invested heavily in HomeGrocer.com in 1999, a company that delivered groceries from large warehouses to homes. Sales peaked at $1.5 million per day, but unfortunately HomeGrocer couldn’t make it through the Dot-com bust.
This postponed Amazon’s grocery ambitions, but it wouldn’t stop them.
