In pictures: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is photographed in Seattle in 2017.
Kyle Johnson/The New York Times/Redux

In pictures: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

Updated 1828 GMT (0228 HKT) July 22, 2021

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is photographed in Seattle in 2017.
Kyle Johnson/The New York Times/Redux

Jeff Bezos started Amazon as an online bookstore in 1995. It is now a retail and logistics behemoth that's worth more than $1.7 trillion.

Bezos has been CEO since the beginning, making him one of the world's richest people. But he is stepping down from that role and transitioning to executive chair.

Bezos said his new position will allow him to spend more time on outside projects he has developed through the years.

His aerospace company, Blue Origin, is part of the Artemis program that NASA says will put two astronauts on the moon. His Bezos Earth Fund supports scientists, activists and organizations working to mitigate the impact of climate change. And in 2013, Bezos bought The Washington Post newspaper.

"I've never had more energy, and this isn't about retiring," Bezos said. "I'm super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have."

Bezos is seen in 1996, a year after he started Amazon.com. At the time it was just an online bookseller.
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Bezos and Sotheby's president and CEO Diana Brooks pose in a customized Volkswagen Beetle from the film "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" in 1999. Sotheby's and Amazon had teamed up to launch sothebys.amazon.com, an online auction site that would offer a broad range of objects, including this car.
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Bezos holds a power drill and a stuffed Pikachu in 1999. By this point, Amazon had started to sell items other than books.
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Gregory Nixon, left, delivers a set of antique golf clubs he sold to David Robichaud, center, via Amazon.com Auctions in 1999. Bezos was there for the moment, as Robichaud, a construction worker, was Amazon's 10-millionth customer.
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In 1999, Bezos was named Time magazine's Person of the Year.
Time
Bezos looks on as Microsoft CEO Bill Gates presents a T-shirt as a retirement gift to Clippy, the Microsoft Office assistant, in 2001. Microsoft was launching Office XP.
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Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, arrive at a media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2003. They divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage.
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Jeff Bezos stands with one of Amazon's trademark door-desks at the company's Seattle headquarters in 2004.
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Bezos introduces the Kindle e-reader at a news conference in 2007.
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Bezos announces the Kindle DX in 2009.
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Bezos, third from left, meets with NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver at the Blue Origin headquarters in Kent, Washington, in 2011. Bezos' Blue Origin was started in 2000 with the goal of providing low-cost access to private space travel.
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Bezos holds up the new Kindle Fire HD during a news conference in Santa Monica, California, in 2012.
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Bezos appears on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" in 2012.
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Bezos unveils the Fire Phone during an event in Seattle in 2014.
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Bezos poses on a truck while visiting Bangalore, India, in 2014.
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Bezos tours The Washington Post's new offices in 2016. Bezos bought the newspaper in 2013.
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Bezos listens to first lady Michelle Obama at a White House event in 2016. The event announced commitments from more than 50 companies to hire and train veterans and military spouses. Bezos announced a commitment by Amazon to hire 25,000 more military veterans in the next five years.
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Bezos joins "Transparent" actor Jeffrey Tambor and director Jill Soloway after the Amazon Studios show won Emmys in 2016.
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Bezos discusses his Blue Origin reusable rocket system in 2017. Reusable rockets would substantially reduce the cost of space flight.
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US President Donald Trump and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella listen to Bezos at a White House meeting of the American Technology Council in 2017. According to the White House, the council's goal is "to explore how to transform and modernize government information technology."
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Bezos tours the Spheres, a gathering and working space for Amazon employees, at its opening ceremonies in Seattle in 2018. The space contains hundreds of plant species from cloud forest environments around the globe, and it maintains a tropical climate similar to Costa Rica or Indonesia.
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Bezos shakes hands with Kim Kardashian West while attending the Met Gala in New York in 2019. Actor Jared Leto is on the right.
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Bezos is joined by the children from the Blue Origin Club for the Future in 2019. At the event in Washington, DC, Bezos unveiled a Blue Origin prototype of a lunar lander.
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Bezos shows off Blue Moon, Blue Origin's lunar landing prototype, in 2019.
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Bezos announces the co-founding of The Climate Pledge in 2019. Bezos' broad plan to fight climate change includes meeting the Paris climate agreement 10 years early. That would make the company carbon-neutral by 2040. Bezos also announced that Amazon would purchase 100,000 electric vans.
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Bezos stands next to Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the late journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as a plaque is unveiled near the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2019. It was a year after Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was killed.
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Bezos sits between his girlfriend, Lauren Sánchez, and Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour at a Tom Ford fashion show in Los Angeles in February 2020.
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Bezos testifies before a House subcommittee during an antitrust hearing in July 2020. Other powerful tech figures, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, were also questioned about their competitive tactics.
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In December 2020, Bezos posted this photo of him and his mother, Jacklyn, after Blue Origin's rocket-catching recovery boat was named in her honor.
From Instagram
From left, Oliver Daemen, Bezos, Wally Funk and Bezos' brother Jeff pose for a picture after flying into space in July 2021. The trip marked the first-ever crewed flight of Blue Origin's suborbital space tourism rocket, New Shepard.
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