Since markets have been shuttered and we’ve all been forced to take a day off because of, well, that thing, I’d like to do a post about Jeff Bezos.
At the outset I’d like to say that the Jeff Bezos of the 1990s is someone I deeply respect and admire. Here he is in Amazon’s first real office, using an old door as his desk.
There is a world – – an entire solar system – – of difference between the nerdy, brilliant genius entrepreneur (and father and husband) shown on the left versus the demonic hell-spawn on the right
During the Internet Bubble, Bezos was the big man on campus, so much so that he landed on Time’s cover as Person of the Year in December 1999. That was the exact month that Amazon peaked and went on to a grueling 95% drop in value a couple of years later. As we all well know, that 95% wipeout didn’t destroy the place, and it went on to become a multi-trillion dollar company, largely through the strategic brilliance of Mr. Bezos.
Something changed, however, some years ago. For whatever reason, Bezos decided to stop being the sweet, bald, multi-billionaire nerd with a lovely wife and family and instead become an utter dilettante. He dumped his wife and kids and decided to spend the rest of his life (presumably) with a vapid, plastic-surgery-loving, gold-digging blow-up doll. It’s pretty gross.
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Plus, as you also well know, the lovely couple is going to tie the knot (now that they’ve completed an enormous prenuptial agreement) in just a few days in what is most assuredly going to be the most garish and vulgar display of wealth since the days of King Louis XVI.
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The reason I bring this up is because during my weeklong vacation in Tahiti, it dawned on me how much I’d hate to be Jeff Bezos.
This came to mind because I was getting a tiny, tiny taste of what his life must be life. I was in a tropical paradise. I was in a beautiful house. I had a private chef. It was a truly luxurious experience, and it didn’t take me long to realize just how exhausting and soul-deadening living like that would be.
Bezos spends his days and nights in his multi-hundred-million-dollar yacht sailing the world, going to parties, going to galas, attending award ceremonies, and getting his photos endlessly taken with that empty-headed whore at his side. I can’t help but notice how absolutely miserable he looks.
Look at any picture of Bezos from the 1990s, and he’s always smiling or, more often than that, throwing his head back with that crazy laugh of his. These days, every single picture I see of him looks completely dour.
You know who I envy? You know who I’d love to be? Bezos in 1994. It has nothing to do with the fortune he was going to make. It has to do with the absolutely insane amount of energy, excitement, and challenge he must have felt for days, weeks, and years. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to build something like Amazon, but no wonder he looked so joyous.
As it is now, I’m sure he’s eagerly anticipating the mega-wedding and the countless celebrities he’s going to see there. Yet I also can’t help but think that, once all of it is in the rearview mrror, there’s going to be a terrible emptiness inside, and it’s that emptiness which explains why the man looks the way he looks every time a camera swings his way.
