Amazon's Jeff Bezos Now Richer Than Bill Gates Ever Was: 5 Things

SEATTLE, WA — Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is not only the richest man in the world, he's now worth more than Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has ever been. Bloomberg's Billionaires Index and Forbes, which track the net worth of the world's wealthiest, estimated Bezos' net worth Tuesday at a cool $105 billion.

Tuesday's revelation comes after Amazon's stock increased 1.4 percent on Monday. Amazon shares jumped by an astounding 56 percent last year and have already shot up 6.6 percent nine days into 2018.

Bezos is no stranger to the exclusive $100 billion club, reaching the number during surging Black Friday sales in late November, too.

Gates is now worth an estimated $92 billion to $94 billion. As Patch previously reported, Gates would be the world's wealthiest person had he not donated much of his wealth to charity, amassing a fortune of more than $150 billion.

What you might not know: Gates and Bezos are neighbors — both live in the tiny and ultra rich city of Medina across Lake Washington from Seattle.

Here are five other things you might not know about Jeff Bezos.

1. Bezos Didn't Know His Biological Father

Bezos told Wired magazine in 1999 he had never met his biological father. His mother, Jackie Gise, was 17 when she married 18-year-old Mike Bezos, a recent Cuban national. Jeff Bezos was born soon thereafter in January 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was 10 years old when he found out that Mike Bezos wasn't actually his biological father.

2. Bezos' Biological Father Didn't Even Know Jeff Bezos Was His Son

His biological father is Ted Jorgensen, a bike shop owner in Arizona who didn't know he had fathered the Amazon billionaire until 2012. Jorgensen said in a statement five years ago he regretted the decision to allow Mike Bezos to adopt his son, and said he had regularly talked with the boy until he was 3 years old. They hadn't spoken since.

3. Bezos' Grandfather Stoked His Curiosity

Jeff Bezos fixed windmills, castrated cattle, laid pipes and fixed pumps over multiple summers working at his grandfather’s ranch in Cotulla, Texas. As Bezos' grandfather, Lawrence Preston “Pop” Gise — who worked on space tech and missile defense systems — helped stoke Bezos' curiosity with educational games and toys. Gise helped Bezos with Heathkits and other things he routinely brought to their garage, such as various robot parts, an aluminum foil-covered umbrella spine for solar cooking and an old vacuum cleaner that they converted into a hovercraft.

4. Bezos Has A Firm "Two-Pizza" Rule For Meetings

Bezos avoids unnecessary meetings like the plague and has instituted a so-called "two-pizza" rule. Per Business Insider, if a meeting must be held, Bezos uses the rule to make them more useful and productive. The more people who attend the meeting, the less productive it'll be, so no meeting should have more people than two pizzas can feed, he said.

5. Bezos Has A Pretty Odd Hobby

Bezos spends his spare time searching the Atlantic Ocean for rockets that NASA used to power the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s. Bezos successfully recovered several parts of two Apollo F-1 engines, You can watch a video of him pulling up an F-1 engine from an underwater Apollo 11 site here.

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