Bezos' Big Tech Investments: Uber, Workday, Airbnb, and More
Another of Bezos' notable investments was in cloud human resources company Workday (WDAY). After Bezos' investment in the company, Workday went public in an initial public offering (IPO) that valued it at $637 million in 2012.
The founder of Amazon boasts several other enterprises — including the aforementioned aerospace company Blue Origin and The Washington Post newspaper — that have helped boost his net worth. His investment firm, Bezos Expedition, owns stakes in Uber (UBER) , AirBnB (ABNB) , and X (formerly Twitter) (TWTR) .
As such, companies that benefit Amazon would also benefit Bezos financially. Amazon's corporate venture capital arm also invested in Figure AI, Swiss-Mile and Skild AI, which makes sense given that Amazon is one of the world's largest employers of robots, having deployed 750,000 of them to date.
Bezos makes personal investments through his venture capital vehicle, Bezos Expeditions. He was one of the first shareholders in Google, when he invested $250,000 in 1998. That $250,000 investment resulted in 3.3 million shares of Google stock, worth about $3.1 billion in 2017.
Mark Zuckerberg currently owns a total of 1 stock. Mark Zuckerberg owns 394,265 shares of Meta Platforms Inc (META) as of January 8, 2025, with a value of $243 Million.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust dumped its stake in several large companies, including Apple, Meta, Google-owner Alphabet, Amazon and Nvidia. This was revealed in Berkshire's 13F filing with the SEC, which is required for all investors who manage over $100 million in funds.
1. Nvidia. Nvidia (NVDA -3.00%) has arguably been the biggest winner from AI, as its revenue absolutely skyrocketed the past two years. In fiscal year 2024, ended in January of last year, its revenue grew 125%, while in fiscal year 2025, its revenue is set to more than double once again.
Amazon's AI Investment Pays Off as $ALAB Astera Labs Soars 72% in IPO. 👉 Key Highlights: 📍 Astera Labs' IPO surges 72%, closing at $62.03 with a near $9.5 billion market cap. 📍 Amazon benefits from the surge, with shares and warrants worth almost $144 million.
Billionaire Bill Gates Has 33% of His $46 Billion Foundation Invested In This Once-In-A-Generation Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock.
His collection includes several high-end vehicles such as a Cadillac Escalade, Land Rover Range Rover, Mercedes-Benz S450, Ferrari Pininfarina Sergio, W Motors' Lykan HyperSport, Bugatti Veyron Mansory and Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita.
Currently worth $246 billion, Jeff Bezos is one of the richest men in the world. So it may come as a surprise to learn he kept his Amazon salary at just over $80,000 for decades.
Yes, Blue Origin and almost all privately held companies issue stock so founders, employees, and investors can participate in equity ownership. However, because Blue Origin is privately held, it is more challenging to acquire shares than if the company was publicly traded.
KoBold Metals, the AI-driven mining startup backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, has secured $537 million in its Series C funding round. The latest funding round gives the Berkeley-based company a valuation of $2.96 billion and fresh capital to pursue ambitious goals in the critical minerals sector.
He has made billions by founding or investing in a variety of forward-thinking tech companies. The most well-known Elon Musk companies are Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, which he bought and rebranded as X.
Apple. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has ranked as the largest holding in Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway portfolio for several years. The iPhone maker is still at the top early in the new year. Berkshire owns 300 million shares of Apple worth around $73.2 billion, representing 24.8% of its total holdings.
Amazon's growth
A $1,000 investment at the closing price on the day of the IPO and not sold would be worth roughly $1.87 million today. The stock made its debut on May 15, 1997, at a pre-split closing price of $23.50 per share ($0.098 per share split-adjusted).
Today, PillPack is licensed to ship prescriptions in 50 states and likely booked more than $100 million in revenue last year. The acquisition of Pillpack by Amazon comes at a time when the industry is undergoing drastic change, and represents a big move by Amazon to enter - and disrupt - the pharmacy business.
Microsoft. Microsoft, a leader in AI technology, leverages AI-powered tools and machine-learning models to enhance productivity and efficiency across industries. In 2019, Microsoft sponsored $1 billion in OpenAI in collaboration, making Microsoft Azure the only OpenAI cloud provider.
With the rise in computational power and resources today, Watson AI has become extremely powerful, capable of performing tasks once limited to humans such as sight, hearing, speech, and learning.
Microsoft is the biggest investor in generative AI leader OpenAI, having spent some $14 billion on the startup. Microsoft on Jan. 3 announced plans to spend $80 billion in its fiscal 2025 building out data centers, up from $50 billion last fiscal year.
# 4 Google
Buffett's technical knowledge wasn't his strongest suit and he admits that he didn't devote enough time and effort to analyzing Google's business and come to a logical conclusion regarding buying in.
The ownership structure of Microsoft (MSFT) stock is a mix of institutional, retail, and individual investors. Approximately 42.26% of the company's stock is owned by Institutional Investors, 0.04% is owned by Insiders, and 57.71% is owned by Public Companies and Individual Investors.