Amazon founder Jeff Bezos thought there was a 70% chance the company would fail
A child who spent summers at his grandfather’s ranch in southern Texas, laying pipe, vaccinating cattle and fixing windmills went on to become the world's richest person. From a garage store to the world's largest online retailer, how was it done?
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos in 1995.
Image credits | Pinterest
It was 1994 and Bezos was working on Wall Street. At 30 years old, he began to see the internet revolution take place, then he made the decision to quit his job and took the entrepreneurial plunge to start Amazon. That was probably one of the best decisions Jeff Bezos has taken in his life.
When Bezos was a senior vice president at D.E. Shaw & Co., back in 94’ his boss and founder of the company, David Shaw, actually discouraged him from starting Amazon. Jeff went to his boss and told him the idea, “Sounds like a good idea but probably a better idea for someone who doesn't have a good job,” Shaw told Bezos as they walked, while stressing on the fact that he would be giving up a pivotal role at the firm.
But when he started Amazon as an online bookseller in 1994, Bezos thought it was likely that his business would fail.
"I thought there was a 30% chance that we might build a successful company," Bezos told John Stofflet in an interview.
In fact, Bezos told his parents — who gave their son $245,573, a large fraction of their life savings to help build the business in 1995 —
that there was a 70 percent chance that they would lose their whole investment, which was a few hundred thousand dollars, and they did it anyway.
Starting Amazon was a gamble for Bezos: He left a stable job at a hedge fund in New York City and moved to Seattle to start Amazon out of his garage at a time when most people did not even know what the internet was.
And even though Bezos' parents provided financial support, they were also worried about his decision. My dad’s first question was, “What’s the Internet?”. So he wasn’t making a bet on this company or this concept. He was making a bet on his son, as was my mother” — Jeff said.
"Don't quit your job," his mother Jacklyn Bezos warned,"Can you do this on the weekends and nights?" she asked.
Obviously it all worked out for Bezos. Amazon went public in 1997, and today, the company has a market cap of roughly $1.7 trillion.
Today, thanks to Amazon's success, CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, with a net worth of ~ $207 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Image credits | wallpaper crave
"What's actually happened over the last 25 years with Amazon is way beyond my expectations," Bezos said during a fireside chat in India in January. "I was hoping to build a company, but not a company like what you see today."