Jeff Bezos briefly became the world's richest person as prices of Amazon shares surged
Thursday was an eventful day for Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos. He dethroned Bill Gates as the world's richest person when Amazon stock prices jumped. But his reign lasted briefly as share prices fell down after a few hours and he slipped back to #2 spot. Febin Benjamin, a resident of Pimprigaon, Pune saw an opportunity to have some fun and seized it. The 25-year-old software engineer reached out to Amazon India on Facebook and joked if his order caused the chain of events with Mr Bezos.
In the Facebook post, he wrote, "Hi Amazon, I ordered a product and immediately I got a news that Jeff Bezos became world's richest person. And some time later I changed my mind so I cancelled my order and then again I got a news that Jeff Bezos slipped to #2. Can you please check and let me know if it was my order cancellation that caused this entire sequence of events?"
In just eight hours, the cheeky post went viral with over 3,000 shares, something Febin Benjamin didn't expect at all.
"I was not at all expecting it to go beyond 100 likes. I have a habit of posting witty one-liners here and there but this much traction has blown my mind," he told NDTV.
The post was a definite hit on Facebook with over 4,000 comments on it.
"I just bought Windows 10 from Amazon. God knows who will be the richest now," wondered a Facebook user.
"Amazon's legal team reply: Dear customer, we've checked the record and realized that yes it was your product which caused so and you did that intentionally. Due to the mental agony, public embarrassment, humiliation which your act has caused us, we're planning to sue you for $5,00,00,000," joked a user.
Another user said, "troll (sic) of the century award goes to this legend".
The brief surge in Amazon shares on Thursday propelled its founder's net worth to $90.6 billion, surpassing Bill Gates' net worth of $90.1 billion. By noon, the shares dropped and Bill Gates reclaimed the top spot on Forbes magazine's wealthiest people list. The Microsoft founder has maintained the top position on the list since May 2013.Click for more
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