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The First 19 Amazon Employees: Where Are They Now?

JILLIAN D'ONFROOct 23, 2014, 22:21 IST

Sara Jaye/Getty Images An old photo of Jeff and MacKenzie

When Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, started driving northwest from Texas in 1994, they were setting off on a journey to create one of the biggest e-commerce sites in the United States, based in Seattle. Although they took that first long road trip alone, it didn't take Bezos - with his grand vision and boisterous laugh - long to start pulling in talent.

Brad Stone's book "The Everything Store" along with a conversation with early employees Tom Schonhoff and Mike Hanlon helped us figure out the names of some of Amazon's first critical employees. (The first 10 employees are listed in the order they were hired, though the others are not. If you know someone else who was there in the earliest days, let us know!)

Some early Amazon employees have become entrepreneurs. Others are angel investors. A few are happily retired.

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.