Jackie and her husband, Miguel, are known to be the first investors in Amazon, loaning two cheques totaling $245,573 in 1995 in exchange for equity.
Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos on Thursday paid tribute to his mother, Jackie Bezos, who died at 78 after a five-year battle with dementia. She was one of the first two investors in her son’s fledgling e-commerce venture when it launched from the garage of a rented home in Washington in 1995.
Jackie died at her home in Miami after a five-year-long battle with Lewy body dementia, according to the Bezos Family Foundation’s website.
The former Amazon CEO posted the tribute on Instagram, detailing her early life, divorce and remarriage, and philanthropic efforts.
“Her adulthood started a little bit early when she became my mom at the tender age of 17. That couldn’t have been easy, but she made it all work,” he wrote.
“Jackie was a devoted mother, always putting her children first,” the foundation’s statement read. “Her commitment to personal growth was an inspiration to all who knew her.”
Jackie was a philanthropist with a particular focus on education. She and her second husband, Miguel Bezos, founded the Bezos Family Foundation in 2000. The foundation funded educational programs and later became one of the top charities as gains from Amazon’s growth began to accumulate.
The couple is known to be the first investors in Amazon, loaning two cheques totaling $245,573 in 1995 in exchange for equity. That eventually ballooned into a fortune worth more than $30 billion by 2018, according to a Bloomberg report.
Amazon’s stock has returned a whopping 256,500% since it went public on the Nasdaq in 1997, cementing its place as one of the most successful startups in American corporate history. On Stocktwits, it is followed by over 675,000 retail investors.
Jackie was born as Jacklyn Marie Gise in Virginia on Dec. 29, 1946. She married Theodore Jorgensen from her college in 1963, and Jeff Bezos was born in December of the same year.
Jackie soon divorced Jorgensen, recounting in a recent interview that he was not a good father or husband. She married Cuban immigrant and petroleum engineer Miguel Bezos in 1968. Jeff Bezos reportedly has no relationship with his biological father.
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