Before launching Amazon, building rockets at Blue Origin, and climbing to a net worth of $238 billion according to Forbes, Jeff Bezos was just another teenager in a fast-food uniform. His first job? Cleaning bathrooms and mopping up five-gallon ketchup disasters at a McDonald's in Miami.
At the 2025 America Business Forum in Miam last month, Bezos reflected on his earliest work experience—not with irony, but with appreciation.
"That was a great job, by the way," he said on stage. "I learned a lot. Be on time. You have to start at the bottom. I cleaned the bathrooms." And when the ketchup dispenser exploded, flooding the floor, Bezos didn't duck. "Who do you think they asked to clean it up? This guy."
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The lesson stuck. So did the location. Bezos recalled returning to the same McDonald's on Dixie Highway recently with his wife, Lauren Sánchez. "We drove through the drive-thru, got Big Macs and chicken nuggets," he said. "It looks exactly the same as it did 40 years ago."
As the founder of both Amazon and Blue Origin, Bezos shared that his childhood dream—to build a space company that could one day move heavy-polluting industry off Earth—was already in his head back in high school. "This little kid… was dreaming at that time of building a space company," he said. "And this guy sitting here on stage with you is still dreaming the same dream 40 years later."
The takeaway wasn't just about nostalgia. It was about grit, responsibility, and learning to show up. Speaking to author Cody Teets in the book "Golden Opportunity: Remarkable Careers That Began at McDonald's," Bezos said that "you can learn responsibility in any job if you take it seriously. 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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Bezos wasn't the only one mopping floors and clocking in for minimum wage before launching into the stratosphere. Actor James Franco once relied on McDonald's to stay afloat after dropping out of college. "When I needed McDonald's, McDonald's was there for me," he wrote in a 2015 Washington Post essay. "When no one else was." He added that when someone asked if he felt the job was beneath him, his answer was simple: "I was definitely not too good to work at McDonald's."
Jay Leno, the longtime host of "The Tonight Show," worked at a McDonald's in Massachusetts and credited the job with teaching him discipline that carried into his career, according to CNBC.
For startup founders, side hustlers, and big-dreamers slogging through low-paying jobs, Bezos' message is clear: your first gig doesn't define your ceiling—but it might shape your foundation. Whether you're cleaning up spills or debugging code, lessons in humility and hustle still count.
After all, if a teenager scraping ketchup off tile can one day build the world's largest e-commerce platform and a private rocket company, there's room for anyone to dream. But only if they're willing to start at the bottom—and stick around long enough to reach the top.
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