Turns out you can go home again.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced Thursday on Instagram that he was leaving Seattle and heading back to his old stomping grounds of Miami.
In an emotional post, the 59-year-old billionaire explained that he wanted to be closer to his parents, Jackie and Mike Bezos, who live in a massive spread in Coral Gables.
Bezos also wants to be nearer to his space exploration company Blue Origin, which is “increasingly shifting operations” to Cape Canaveral, further up the Florida coast.
The signs that the Internet megamogul was relocating were all there.
In August, Bezos paid $68 million for a 9,259 square foot, three bedroom, three bathroom mansion in Indian Creek Village, a man-made barrier island on Biscayne Bay also known as “Billionaire Bunker.” Two months later, he dropped another $79 million for the seven-bedroom, 14-bathroom, 19,064 square foot estate next door.
Safe to say, Bezos, with a net worth of $156 billion, and his fiancée, former journalist Lauren Sanchez, will have enough room if they want a little “Me Time.”
We did the math: That’s 28,323 square foot in total in which to spread out — a far cry from the cramped garage in Bellevue, Washington, where Bezos first launched Amazon back in 1994. On the same post, he gives us a tour of his first “office,” full of papers everywhere, retro computers and a giant orange extension cord snaking across the wall.
“That’s one of the contraptions we have to have because there is not enough power so we have to bring in some extra circuit breakers,” says the world’s second-wealthiest man, who had a full head of hair back in those days.
So, after 30 years, Bezos, who has a reported net worth at $161 billion, will become a Florida Man once again.
“I love Miami,” admits the e-commerce magnate who was actually born in Albuquerque, N.M. After his mother split with Bezos’ father, late unicyclist Ted Jorgensen, she attended night school where she met Mike Bezos, a Cuban immigrant who was attending the University of New Mexico on a scholarship.
The couple, who married in 1968, subsequently moved to Houston, and then a few years later, Pinecrest, where Jeff attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School, graduating in 1982.
“Go Panthers!” wrote the alum, who appears slightly wistful over his decision to leave the Emerald City for good.
“I’ve lived in Seattle longer than I’ve lived anywhere else and have so many amazing memories here,” concluded his post. “As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me. Seattle, you will always have a place in my heart.”