When Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his Seattle garage after quitting a cushy Wall Street job, it was because he saw internet usage growing at 2,300% a year. Even he couldn’t have imagined the stupendous success that awaited him. The brilliant billionaire went from packing books by hand to building one of the most advanced logistics networks in the world, a transformation that surprised everyone, including him.
In a 1999 interview, Bezos told CNN he was stunned by Amazon’s success, admitting that his original vision was modest and what followed left him “the most shocked person on the planet.” A year later, in 2000, the Amazon founder left many chuckling when he revealed his dream of exploring space. But it didn’t take the tech tycoon more than two decades to turn that ambition into a reality.
Bezos said, “If I could do anything, and it turns out this is a very hard technical problem, I would like to help go explore space,” adding that he wasn’t holding out great hopes, given how implausible it seemed. When prodded further, he added, “I would get in a rocket ship, go up into space, and go check out a few things,” he told Charlie Rose.
Imagine his euphoria now, as his fiancée Lauren Sánchez, who even wrote a children’s book about space, is actually heading there with an all-female crew. She hasn’t officially dubbed it her bachelorette party, but that’s what we’d like to call it, as the launch will take place just weeks before her grand Italian nuptials this June.
Without taking away from the seriousness of their mission, let’s just say that girls just want to have fun, even when they’re conquering the world or, in Sánchez’s case, space. Flying high is no big deal for the helicopter pilot, who earned her license at 40 and went on to receive the Elling Halvorson Vertical Flight Hall of Fame Induction at the Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards.
Life has come full circle, not just for the centibillionaire, now worth $209 billion, but also for his ladylove. Before saying “I do” in Venice, the couple will have both visited space, an accomplishment that very few power couples can flaunt.
Sánchez’s space plans:
An accomplished pilot and journalist, Sánchez is set to lead an all-female crew aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-31 mission, scheduled for April 14, 2025. Joining her will be a plush version of Flynn, the character from her children’s book The Fly Who Flew to Space. Going beyond helicopters and into orbit, Sánchez said, “It’s about inspiring the next generation of explorers and dreamers, being bold, and embracing adventure in pursuit of learning and growing as a person.” She first revealed her plans in 2023, telling CNN that she’d be joined by “a great group of females on a trip to space.”
Jeff Bezos was, no doubt, an inspiration; he himself flew to the edge of space on the first crewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket alongside his brother, Mark Bezos.
Jeff Bezos in space:
In that same 2000 interview, Bezos admitted that going to space was a difficult task, one he estimated could take 20 years or more, since there hadn’t been significant progress in space transportation since the Apollo program. And yet, on July 20, 2021, he made it happen.
Flying aboard New Shepard, the rocket built by his space company, Blue Origin, Bezos went more than 60 miles above Earth on a 10-minute suborbital flight. He wasn’t the first billionaire to reach space in a craft he funded (Richard Branson beat him to it), but Bezos was undoubtedly the richest. In fact, his rocket flew farther than Branson’s. He called it the “best day ever.”
Now, he’ll share that experience with his soon-to-be wife, Lauren Sánchez, who may very well call it the best wedding gift ever.
