economie

See how different Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other tech CEOs looked when they first started their companies

August 9, 20240
Amazon has come a long way from just selling books, and its founder, Jeff Bezos, is also very different today.

Getty Images

Bezos founded Amazon from his garage in Bellevue, Washington, in 1994. He attributes his new look partly to working out with a celebrity personal trainer and changing his diet.

Mark Zuckerberg
Dell founded his company, initially called PC’s Limited, in 1984 while still a student at the University of Texas in Austin.

Dell / Errich Petersen/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty Images

Dell is another member of the college dropouts-turned-tech founders club.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Elon Musk today runs several more companies than he did in 1999, when the photo on the left was taken.

AP / Richard Bord/WireImage via Getty Images

The photo at left shows Musk in 1999, around the time the “PayPal mafia” was formed.

Musk has said he doesn’t care for exercise and “almost never” works out, though he’s credited fasting and the weight loss drug Wegovy with his appearance today.

Bill Gates
Dorsey has been sporting a beard in the years since he stepped down as CEO of Twitter in 2021.

Kara Andrade/AFP via Getty Images / Joe Raedle/Getty

Twitter was founded in 2006. Cofounder Dorsey has been seen with a full beard pretty regularly since departing as CEO and focusing his efforts more on cryptocurrency at Block, formerly Square.

Richard Branson
New photos of Ma are scarce as he’s been out of the limelight in recent years.

Liang Zhen/WireImage / Liu Yang/VCG via Getty Images

Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma disappeared from public view in 2020 after criticizing China’s financial regulation system. He resurfaced in Thailand in 2022 and has been teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo.

Anne Wojcicki
Whitney Wolfe Herd became the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire after taking Bumble public.

Kate Warren for The Washington Post via Getty Images / Dipasupil/Getty Images

Whitney Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in 2014 and stepped down as CEO last year.

Evan Spiegel
Reed Hastings cofounded Netflix in 1997 with Marc Randolph.

Paul Sakuma/AP Images / Ore Huiying / Getty

Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph cofounded Netflix in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail service provider before it would become the streaming giant it is today. Hastings gave up the CEO title in January 2023, though he still serves as board chairman.