Jeff Bezos's New Life

Bezos, 61, presumably has an even clearer idea of ​​what he might regret at 80 than he did at 31, 41, or 51, when his eightieth birthday was still a long way off. To get an idea of ​​his current calculation, one need only look at how he spends, first, his time, and second, his $240 billion fortune.

When the billionaire returns from his honeymoon, the details of which are as secret as the wedding itself has been a rave, he will return to his other love: Blue Origin. Bezos has been passionate about space since he watched the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, when he was five years old. In 2000, he founded the space rocket company, whose motto is “Gradatim ferociter” (step by step, boldly), with the goal of making space travel cheaper using reusable craft. The ultimate goal is to allow humanity to continue growing in a resource-rich and non-polluting space, while Earth thrives as a planetary nature reserve.

Until he stepped down as Amazon's CEO in 2021, he spent the same half-day every workweek (plus Saturday mornings) turning that science fiction into a business reality. One of the reasons he left Amazon was, as he himself admitted, that Blue Origin was carrying out its mission too gradually and not ferociously enough. SpaceX, a rival two years younger, launched dozens of payloads into orbit each year. Blue Origin had yet to launch a single one.

So, by his own admission, he's spent 90% of his time on Blue Origin for the past four years. He's the sole owner of the company, but he doesn't run it on a day-to-day basis. That task falls to David Limp, whom Bezos hired in 2023 from Amazon, where he oversaw several projects related to devices like the Alexa digital assistant, the Kindle e-reader, and Project Kuiper, a satellite broadband initiative to compete with SpaceX's Starlink system.

However, according to people familiar with the situation, Bezos is, de facto, the co-CEO, as well as the chief problem-solver. He's constantly trying to make Blue Origin's four factories and seven offices in the United States run more efficiently. For example, it's hard not to see his relentless hand in the company's decision to lay off a tenth of its 14,000 employees in February. Nothing to regret there, at least on Bezos's part.

And there have been few regrets of late elsewhere in the company. Two years ago, Blue Origin landed the contract to develop a lander for NASA's planned crewed return to the moon. In January, it carried out the long-awaited maiden voyage of its New Glenn rocket. The craft reached orbit on the first try (though the reusable first stage wasn't recovered as SpaceX routinely does). A second launch is planned for August. Blue Origin may land more federal contracts. Right now, Elon Musk, SpaceX's explosive boss, is breaking off his friendship with the US president, while Bezos flatters him with a (declined) invitation to his wedding and has softened the anti-Trump tone of The Washington Post , his newspaper.

What about the tenth of Bezos' week that isn't spent on Blue Origin or promoting the company? Amazon, of which he remains CEO, is booming under his handpicked successor, Andy Jassy. The Washington Post increasingly seems like a distraction. Instead, Bezos's main sideline today is the Bezos Earth Fund. If Blue Origin helps make space habitable in the future, the goal of this $10 billion charity is to keep the Earth as it is today.

This dual desire, which is not new, also has a growing influence on Bezos's financial investments, although less unevenly than his time commitment. Bezos's fortune comes largely from his 8.6% stake in Amazon, valued at nearly $200 billion. It is managed in part through his family office , Bezos Expeditions. According to PitchBook, a data provider, that vehicle oversees $108 billion in assets. That's roughly the same amount as the Ohio state pension fund.

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In the past, Bezos Expeditions' portfolio included early bets on Airbnb, Twitter (the former name of X), Uber, and other startups that have since become household names. Bezos may have gotten a healthy return by selling his shares while they were still private, but his subsequent lackluster stock performance (better than the S&P 500, but not better than the Nasdaq, and certainly not better than Amazon) doesn't exactly reflect a risk-taking attitude.

Bezos Expeditions' current ventures seem more daring, and useful for a space-exploring species with a soft spot for its home world. He has backed startups developing intelligent artificial brains for robots (Skild AI, Physical Intelligence) and their mechanical strength (RIVR Technologies), as well as interfaces to connect the human mind with artificial limbs (Synchron). He has funded General Fusion, which is working to harness solar energy on Earth, and NotCo, which uses artificial intelligence to produce plant-based meat. He is an investor in Atlas Data Storage, which wants to store information in synthetic DNA rather than silicon. And, of course, Bezos has invested billions, in an undisclosed amount, in Blue Origin. To some, all of this may seem like the behavior of a tycoon past his prime looking for ways to spend his money. It's better to understand it as the fulfillment of a childhood dream, with no regrets.

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Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix