Jeff Bezos defends spending his Amazon billions on space travel

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos defended his pursuit of space travel with his Blue Origin rocket venture, telling a crowd at Wired’s 25th anniversary summit in San Francisco that it’s only by taking big risks and pursuing personal visions that humanity can progress in meaningful ways. Bezos became the world’s richest person in July, thanks largely to increases in Amazon’s stock price. He has since faced criticism for how he decides to spend his wealth, although the executive did just announce a $2 billion nonprofit initiative to fund public preschools for low-income communities. “I will not spend one minute of my life on anything that I don’t think is contributing to civilization and society,” Bezos told journalist Steven Levy, responding to a... Continue reading…