Jackie Bezos, mother of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and an early investor in his company, died on Aug. 14 at her home in Miami after a years-long struggle with Lewy body dementia, the family said. She was 78. Born Jacklyn Gise in 1946, she committed about $245,573 to her son’s nascent online bookstore in 1995, a stake widely credited with helping Amazon gain its initial footing. Jeff Bezos has described his mother as a “fierce protector” who supported him well before the company’s rise into a global retail and cloud-computing giant. In 2000, Jackie and her husband Miguel “Mike” Bezos established the Bezos Family Foundation, which funds early-childhood and youth-leadership initiatives such as the Vroom parenting program and the Bezos Scholars Program in the United States and Africa. She is survived by her husband, three children—Jeff, Christina and Mark—11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. “I hold her safe in my heart forever,” Jeff Bezos wrote in an online tribute announcing her death.