Jakarta –
Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people in the world today, comes from an ordinary family. It can even be said to be destitute and full of struggle. His mother became pregnant with Bezos when he was in high school.
“I can tell you that being a pregnant teen in high school wasn’t cool in the Albuquerque area of New Mexico at the time. So it was really hard for her,” said Bezos, founder of online store giant Amazon.
When Bezos gave birth, Jacklyn Bezos was only 17 years old. Conservative school authorities initially said he could not finish school. “It didn’t make sense, so I kept fighting. And finally the school relented, they let me go back to school on one condition,” said Jacklyn.
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The requirements are so heavy that you can’t talk to other students, you can’t eat lunch in the canteen and you can’t come forward when you graduate. But Jacklyn was able to meet the conditions and passed.
When Bezos was only 17 months old, she divorced her husband, Ted Jorgensen, and worked as a secretary for minimal pay. He rented an apartment, but couldn’t pay for other necessities like telephones. “That’s how we can live in an apartment, because I don’t have to pay for the phone,” he said.
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Eager to continue studying, Jacklyn went to night classes, sometimes bringing Jeff Bezos along. “I had two bags with me, one for textbooks and the other full of diapers and bottles and things that might interest Bezos,” Jacklyn said.
It was during college that Jacklyn met Mike Bezos, a Cuban immigrant who later became her husband. Jeff always thought Mike was his own real father.
The young family moved and Jacklyn was delayed from college for years. While Jeff Bezos was in college, Jacklyn became determined to return to college and graduate, more than two decades from when he graduated high school, when he was 40. Now, the hard struggle is just a memory. Jacklyn lives a comfortable life, watching his son control the Amazon and become the richest man in the world.
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