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Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

While you were sleeping, this man quietly made 7 BILLION dollars

We’d be happy enough finding a loose fiver behind the couch.

YESTERDAY WAS A good day for anyone who owns a piece of Amazon. But if you’re the company’s founder, you can times that by about a million.

The e-commerce giant’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, will start today $7 billion (€6.4 billion) richer – based on his assets, that is – after shares in the company soared over 17% on some unexpectedly strong financial results.

The fast-growing but famously loss-making Amazon reported a rare profit of $92 million (€84 million) for the second three months of the year as it clocked up a staggering $23 billion (€21 billion) in revenue.

That compared to a loss of $126 million on turnover of $19.3 billion the same time in 2014.

The figures were enough to send the stock skyward in after-hours trade on the New York exchange, although it remains to be seen if the big rise will hold up today.

Amazon

Bezos still owns about 18% of the company – more than three times the share of the next-largest, institutional investor – worth about $47.5 billion (€43.5 billion) last night, or roughly $7 billion more than in the morning.

In total, his personal fortune stood at over $50 billion (€46 billion) yesterday, according to Forbes, making him the world’s fifth-richest person. In 2013 he bought the Washington Post for $250 million.

Earns Amazon AP Photo / Ted S. Warren, File AP Photo / Ted S. Warren, File / Ted S. Warren, File

Amazon time

Meanwhile Amazon, which started life in 1995 as an online book store Bezos ran from his Seattle garage, has been continuing its spread into all kinds of retail and logistics operations, including most recently grocery deliveries.

The service is up and running in several US cities, but earlier this week it was reported the Amazon Fresh operation was also coming to the UK.

However Amazon is also facing probes in the EU over whether it shut out rival e-book sellers with anti-competitive contracts, as well as for its tax dealings with Luxembourg.

We doubt Bezos is worrying much about any of that today.

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13 Comments
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    Mute Keith DArcy
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:10 AM

    I half expected to find out how Gangnam Style changed YouTube forever. Should have known better, yet another click phishing article.

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    Mute Leopold Dedalus
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:19 AM

    Do you know what phishing is?

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    Mute Keith DArcy
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 12:07 PM

    I do, thanks for asking. It’s a means to acquire information by deception.

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    Mute Leopold Dedalus
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 12:55 PM

    And what information has this article acquired from you by you clicking into it?

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    Mute Colin C
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 1:03 PM

    Someone give him back his click, please.

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    Mute Andy Patton
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 1:07 PM

    This isn’t phishing, Leopold – it’s click-baiting.

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    Mute Leopold Dedalus
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 1:11 PM

    That’s what I was getting at Andy. I was just appreciating the irony of someone using deceptive wording to complain about an article using deceptive wording.

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    Mute Tom Red
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:22 AM

    Joan Burton getting pegged with the water balloon must be catching up by now????….

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    Mute JJ O Riordan
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:33 AM

    Cam we have one story on the journal without some gobsh!te mentioning the government, or Irish water, or protests in the comments?

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    Mute JJ O Riordan
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:34 AM

    Can* the joys of spellchecker on a phone.

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    Mute Tap Solny
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:42 AM

    The small mind can only try to focus on one issue at a time. The small mind cannot even comprehend the one issue that it is trying to focus on.

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    Mute Andy Lane
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:48 AM

    I blame the liberal, neo-socialist lefty media. And the feminazis.

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    Mute JJ O Riordan
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 9:55 AM

    For the comments or the spellchecker haha

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    Mute dstaffx
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:28 AM

    Remember when Garth Brooks was mentioned in every article comment section. Oh the pain.

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    Mute ChocSaltyBallz
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 11:55 AM

    Not so smart phone

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    Mute J. Dunn
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:35 AM

    Here’s how Facebook helped catch a thug.
    Here’s how Gangnam Style changed Youtube.
    I know the Journal tend toward spells of thematic saturation. Is this to be a week/month of website articles containing ~150 words unrelated to the title’s claim?

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    Mute Andrew Doyle
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 10:30 AM

    By change YouTube forever do they mean increase the number of advertisements??

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    Mute John Horan
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 11:40 AM

    2^32 is 4 billion, so they must be using signed ints, just in case a video is watched a negative number of times?

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    Mute Colin C
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 1:05 PM

    If even 50% of journal commentators knew what a signed int was, the world would be a better place.

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    Mute J. Dunn
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 4:26 PM

    I don’t know what it is but I know what you can do with it.

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    Mute Colin C
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 5:26 PM

    There there.

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    Mute J
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 11:31 AM

    “640k ought to be enough for anybody”
    -Bill Gates

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    Mute Leopold Dedalus
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 12:00 PM

    “I’ve said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time … I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640 K of memory is enough. There’s never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again. ”

    - Bill Gates.

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    Mute J
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 12:23 PM

    “Yes I know he never said that”
    -J

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    Mute Spoddgy
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 11:18 AM

    What did we all learn? That young people are idiots and that people that are hitting past 35 or more should know better than try impress them! Turk out!

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    Mute Lastpost
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    Dec 3rd 2014, 2:32 PM

    South Korean tripe, maybe they think we have a problem with drinking, but we all know they have a problem with music, no talent

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