Just over two decades ago Jeff Bezos started selling books online from his garage.
Today, the Amazon CEO is the richest person on Earth.
According to Forbes and Bloomberg, Bezos's net worth topped $US90 billion, allowing the Amazon founder and CEO to narrowly dethrone Microsoft co‑founder Bill Gates as the richest man in the world.
If Amazon stock holds steady through trading today, Bezos will officially bump Gates, who has been No. 1 since 2013, from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bezos has been hailed as the smartest guy in business for turning a bookselling platform into a disruptive force that has flipped traditional retail on its head.
His world's‑richest‑man milestone was made possible because of Amazon surging stock price.
The e‑commerce juggernaut's market value surpassed $500 billion this week for the first time ever.
The vast majority of the Bezos fortune is tied up in Amazon stock, of which the CEO owns nearly 17%.
That stake alone is worth $US83 billion, meaning Bezos could just as quickly lose his new title as the world's richest man should Amazon's stock decline, or Microsoft's value rise.
Source: BBC
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