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From a book review, Fall 2025 - Winter 2025, The Claremont Review of Books, Peter A. Cclanis, p. 92:
Bezos -- today the world's third-richest person - was born to a 16-year-old high school student from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and an 18-year-old who worked as a unicyclist in a circus.
After learning of the pregnancy, the couple drove to Juárez, Mexico, to get married.
When Bezos was born in January, 1964, his mother had just turned 17. His biological father had trouble financially and drank heavily, leading his mother to file for divorce a little over a year after the marriage. While working as a secretary to make rent, she also attended night school, bringing the baby along with her to classes.
There she met a Cuban immigrant named Miguel Bezos who married her and adopted her baby. Miguel Bezos later graduated from the now-defunct University of Albuquerque with a degree in computer science and got a job with Exxon, which meant moving his family to Houston.
In Houston, young Jeff Bezos attended a public elementary school and was soon recognized as a superstar student. He continued to excel in secondary school and, later, at Princeton, where was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Engineering. Noe of this is to say that Beos was completely self-made -- his stepfather worked fro Exxon and his maternal grandfather was regional director of the US Atomic Energy Commission in Albubquerque -- but he wasn't born on third base, either.
The book: Capitalism and Its Critics: A History From the Industrial Revolution to AI, by John Cassidy; publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 642 pages, $36 (cloth), $27 (paper).
