A Brief History
On July 5, 1994, Amazon, the internet mega-retailer, was founded by Jeff Bezos, his creation eventually making him the richest person in the world, worth $194.4 billion. Amazon provides an enormous inventory without the need for physical stores letting you shop at your desk.
Digging Deeper
The internet has brought incredible wealth to some people, placing them in the ranks of the wealthiest on the planet. Here are some of those folks that used the internet to their financial advantage:
Elon Musk, net worth $180.7 billion, made a lot of his fortune with PayPal, an online money system and Tesla, an electric car company using online shopping and finance.
Mark Zuckerberg, net worth $171.3 billion, co-founded Facebook, the online social network company.
Larry Ellison, net worth $143.9 billion, made his fortune with Oracle Corporation, a software company that has benefitted from the advent of the internet.
Finally, Sergey Brin, net worth $123.9 billion, co-founded Google.
Note: Net worth numbers are subject to change with time and with the source cited.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Have you used the internet to make money?
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
The featured image in this article,
Ostrofsky, Marc. Get Rich Click!: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money on the Internet. Free Press, 2013.
Rossman, John. The Amazon Way: Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles. Clyde Hill Publishing, 2021.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Seattle City Council from Seattle of Jeff Bezos at Amazon Spheres Grand Opening in Seattle, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
