Amazon.com Inc. Founder Jeff Bezos was always unique, even from a young age. His mother, Jacklyn, remembers his fascination with discovering the way machines and toys worked, which was evident when he attempted to take apart his crib with a screwdriver.
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At age 16, Bezos got a summer job at McDonald's Corp. frying burgers in 1980. Despite being a "grill man," his employers kept him away from customers because of his acned-teenager stage. Nonetheless, Bezos used the opportunity to learn as much as he could from the experience.
During his time at McDonald's, Bezos had his first hands-on brush with retail and spent the summer "studying the company's automation improvements," such as beeps and signals for when to "scramble his eggs, flip his burgers and pull his fries out of the boiling vat."
The experience gave Bezos early insight into customer service, which he later acknowledged as being "really hard." Today, "customer obsession" is the first of Amazon's leadership principles.
Bezos's experience at McDonald's also taught him how to keep everything going at the right pace during a rush. According to Cody Teets, author of "Golden Opportunity: Remarkable Careers That Began at McDonald's," Bezos said that "the most challenging thing was keeping everything going at the right pace during a rush."
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Billionaires From Humble Beginnings
Bezos isn't the only successful entrepreneur to have learned valuable lessons from working at a fast-food chain. Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, started as a Pizza Hut dishwasher and worked his way up to waiter in high school.
"I learned basically everything I’ve ever needed to know about customer service," Ohanian told The New York Times.
Similarly, Barbara Corcoran, a star of ABC's "Shark Tank," found great value in working as a waitress in her early 20s. "You learn more in waitressing than you can in any other job," Corcoran told CNBC Make It. "The best job you could have to prepare for entrepreneurship is walk on the other side of the counter and serve people."
Bezos has also spoken about the lessons he learned during his time at McDonald's. His advice for young people is to keep their eyes open for lessons to learn in any job, even if it's just flipping burgers.
"You can learn responsibility in any job if you take it seriously," Bezos said in "Golden Opportunity." "You learn a lot as a teenager working at McDonald's. It's different from what you learn in school. Don't underestimate the value of that!"
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The experiences of these successful entrepreneurs highlight the importance of taking any job seriously and being open to learning from every opportunity. The lessons learned in customer service can be especially valuable for those starting their own businesses, as customer satisfaction is often a key factor in success.
Even though Bezos is the second-richest man in the world and could eat caviar every day, he still goes back to his roots and chows down on a classic McDonald's burger. Last year, he shared a pic of himself on Twitter enjoying a burger, tweeting "My first job. And still the same great burger. Happy Sunday!"
It just goes to show that no matter how much money you make or how famous you become, some things never change, like the taste of a delicious burger. Props to Bezos for staying grounded and showing that success doesn't mean you have to forget your humble beginnings.
Investing in the Next Jeff Bezos
While many of these popular names came from humble beginnings, they all have one thing in common: startups. They eventually founded innovative startups, that went on to receive venture capital to become the companies they are today. Thanks to changes in federal law, anyone can invest in startups on platforms like StartEngine, a popular startup investing platform, including investing in StartEngine itself.
See more on startup investing from Benzinga.
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