Jeff Bezos ranks among the world’s wealthiest people, yet the paycheck he drew from Amazon is far smaller than many would assume.
He stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, handing the job to Andy Jassy, and moved into the role of executive chairman. Bezos continues to hold roughly eight percent of the company, a stake valued at around $225 billion.
Given Amazon’s size, it would be easy to think his annual salary would have been enormous. In reality, it barely changed for decades.
Fortune reports that Bezos has been paid the same base salary since 1998: $81,400.
Bezos has previously explained why he kept his compensation so modest, pointing to the fact that his ownership stake already tied his fortunes to the company’s performance.
Speaking during a New York Times DealBook Summit, he said: “I already owned a significant amount of the company, and I just didn’t feel good about taking more.
“I just felt, ‘How could I possibly need more incentive?’ I just would have felt icky about it.”
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that figure is even lower than what the average construction worker earns.
While his salary was relatively small, Fortune notes that Amazon covered Bezos’ security and business travel, which came to about $1.6 million last year.
“We believe that all Company-incurred security costs are reasonable and necessary and for the Company’s benefit, and that the amount of the reported security expenses for Mr. Bezos is especially reasonable in light of his low salary and the fact that he has never received any stock-based compensation,” they company wrote.
By comparison, Jassy’s base salary is roughly $365,000, though a significant portion of his overall compensation—like other top Amazon leaders—comes through stock awards.
Amazon’s scale today is staggering, with reports suggesting it brings in more than $2 billion in revenue each day. But before it became a retail giant, it started as an online bookstore searching for backing.
Bezos launched Amazon from the garage of his home in Bellevue, Washington, in July 1994.
He has since recalled how difficult the early fundraising process was, saying he offered investors 20 percent of the company for $5 million. Out of 60 pitches, 40 potential backers declined.
“I had to take 60 meetings. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, basically,” he said at the New York DealBook Summit.
One of the doubts he faced from hesitant investors is almost hard to imagine now.
They asked him: “What is the internet?”
“The first question was, ‘What’s the internet? Everybody wanted to know what the internet was’,” Bezos explained.