[somenameforme]

Bezos parents were teenagers of no significant means. After they divorced, his mother married an "uneducated" (in the sense he had not attended college) Cuban immigrant, Miguel Bezos, again of no significant means. After Miguel graduated from the elite University of New Mexico, they moved to Houston so he could work for Exxon. During high school Jeff took on an elite internship working the morning shift at McDonalds.

It's not entirely rags to rich because gramps indeed did well for himself and had a nice big ranch out in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. But it's pretty close to it, and overall a pretty cool story.

[newbYhrly]

You stopped short of detailing the well documented part of 50 people chipping in 25k.

That alone is a testament to how the country has changed. How many McDonalds burger flippers have that social network now?

His childhood and his family greatly benefited from pre-Reagan social programs.

How sad if the mega-mega-billionaires were mega-mega-millionaires. The rich of their childhood got through high taxes ok.

If such taxation is immoral, let’s discuss then the advantages immoral taxation in the past provided them and accept them as less uniquely gifted and successful on their own then.

[somenameforme]

He didn't found Amazon in high school. Instead, alongside working at McDonalds, he also graduated valedictorian, a National Merit Scholar, and so on. He then graduated from Princeton (almost certainly on a full ride scholarship), and again graduated near the top of his class (a member of both Phi Kappa Beta and Tau Beta Pi) with degrees in both electrical engineering and computer science. From there he worked for 8 more years until he set upon founding Amazon.