Jacklyn Bezos, Jeff Bezos’s mother, died on Thursday in her home in Miami, the Amazon founder said in a public announcement. She was 78.
Bezos said that his mother died surrounded by her family after a long battle with Lewy body dementia, a neurological disorder.
Jeff Bezos founded his online bookstore Amazon from his garage in Bellevue, Washington, in July 1994. In February 1995, seeing the potential in their son’s e-commerce business, his mother and her husband invested about $100,000 in Amazon, then another $145,000 in July.
The company would grow to be the largest online retailer in the world, catering to more than 310 million shoppers worldwide, and offering 350 million items for sale. In 2024, Amazon generated approximately $638 billion in revenue last year, projected to increase to $700 billion in 2025.
Jacky Bezos, née Gize, was born in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 29, 1946. She was raised in Albuquerque, where she would have her first child before finishing high school.
“Her adulthood started a little bit early when she became my mom at the tender age of 17,” Bezos said. “That couldn’t have been easy, but she made it all work.”
Her first child, a boy, was born on Jan. 12, 1964, as Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen. According to biographer Brad Stone, she left the boy’s biological father to live with her parents.
“She pounced on the job of loving me with ferocity, brought my amazing dad onto the team a few years later, and then added my sister and brother to her list of people to love, guard, and nourish,” Jeff Bezos said.
“For the rest of her life, that list of people to love never stopped growing. She always gave so much more than she ever asked for.”
After finishing high school, Jackie took night school classes, working in a bank by day. Her shift overlapped with a young Cuban immigrant named Miguel “Mike” Bezos who worked the night shift. The two fell in love and got married in 1968. It was the beginning of a lifelong partnership.
Jacky leaves behind her husband Mike, three children—Jeff, Christina, and Mark—and 11 grandchildren.