I was responding to someone who said he stumbled into his wealth the same way he stumbled into his $250k. Nothing about who has more or less advantage. I can say with almost full confidence though, 99.99% of us here with $250k would not achieve what Bezos did. He wasn't the only one with any capital back in the day. There were and still are hundreds of thousands of capital backed tech startups that go nowhere.
Facebook, Amazon etc....
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It was originally pointed out as a means to discredit the achievement of creating Amazon, as though that investment is the only reason or even the main reason he was successful, and anybody could have done it if they had the same opportunity. That's clearly nonsense, for two reasons. One, plenty of others could have got the same investment from their family. In countries like the US it's not uncommon for people of that age to have that kind of money saved up. The median wealth of a retiree in the US is just under $250k. Two, and much more importantly, his parents' investment was not some unbeatable advantage. Bezos was raising funds from multiple sources, most of which anybody could go to. He valued Amazon at $5 million and he got 22 investors signed up, including his parents, and gave them 1% for every $50k. Had his parents not invested it wouldn't have made any difference. He still would have raised the money and Amazon still would be what it is today.
It's driven by little more than jealousy and isn't particularly surprising from that poster.
I can say with full confidence that you wouldn’t. I mean neither could I but still
I’m not downplaying his achievements. I think he’s a bit of wanker but what he has done is impressive . He has clearly had an advantage over many though.The median net worth isn’t particularly insightful, the vast majority of that will be equity in properties, the average parent wouldn’t be able to liquidate their assets and give a quarter of a million to their son. He had wealthy parents, worked at a hedge fund and had the financial security that many people don’t. I’m not dismissing what he’s done by saying he has had advantages, he undeniably has. I’ve had advantages compared to many, even if it wasn’t quite to the same level.
I think you need to redefine wealthy. His mother was a 17 year high school student when he was born and his father was a Cuban refugee who got a job as an engineer at an oil company. By American standards they were about as working class as they come.
you don't know any working class peopleWell that's the point. I think pointing out his $250k is quite insignificant given Bezos was, for American standards, not upper class.
This gets parroted a lot but it’s just not true. There’s always a concerted effort to paint these people as rags to riches kind of stories, but the facts don’t add up. His grandfather was one of the biggest landowners in Texas. His parents were able to give him 250k in the 90s. Please, these people aren’t working class
If you’re gonna quote me answer my damn question. You’re like a politician ffs
Amazon was an online bookstore.....a fecking bookstore. The scope and depth of what Amazon is now is quite insane.
His family giving him $250K in cash in the 90s is extremely impressive. That's a lot of cash from your family.. But they and others believed in his vision and execution of it, thus other investors.
His family giving him $250K in cash in the 90s is extremely impressive. That's a lot of cash from your family.. But they and others believed in his vision and execution of it, thus other investors.
No he wasn't. His grandfather was a retired engineer who bought a pretty average ranch by Texas standards. 25,000 acres in a state of 127 million acres. It wasn't until Bezos got hold of it and added hundreds of thousands of acres that it became one of the biggest in the state. Nobody is saying his parents were poor but they were pretty normal by American standards, and Bezos certainly wasn't given opportunities that weren't available to pretty much anybody in America.
I will guess you haven't been to Texas.
250k in funds from your family is pretty significant in any context - even if the the parents are multi-millionaires. The question that would obviously need to be addressed is whether anyone else with that sort of start up funds could turn it into a 71 million percent gain . Even if you scaled the original 250k down to 25k, then converted that into $200m, that would still be a tremendous gain, which just doesn't happen other than in extraordinary circumstances.
I am not sure I agree with "any" context. The startup world is full of such capital. The type of folks Bezos would have been in competition would have had millions (and this still happens right now more so than ever) but financially backed startups go bust all the time.
Come on mate this is borderline delusional.
Working class as they come? The opportunities he had is available to everybody in America? You can’t tell me in good faith you believe that. He obviously achieved a tremendous amount but I’m not sure why you can’t accept that he did have advantages.
I will guess you can’t answer a simple question but keep popping up with your inane crap.
If you had a question it certainly wasn't simple as I found none in your white text.
The VC / startup world was largely non-existent back in the early 90s compared to what we know it as today. 1994 was well before the dot com boom, so 250k back then would've been a sizeable amount of money to get a small company up and running. What happened after that was obviously down to the confluence of luck (the timing of the rapid growth of the web and the onset of e-commerce) and a lot of work on Bezos' part to keep reinvesting and growing the company over time.
Could your parents have given you 250k? I’ve asked this four times and I’m sure you’re trolling at this point, but there you go, I’ve bitten one more time.
I don't think the sum is as relevant as the percentage of gain. Even if that 250k was a mere $250 and someone turned it into $2million, that would still be viewed as a tremendous success, and yet virtually no one does it. So there is some degree of vision, planning, and effort involved in terms of taking an idea and turning into something tangible that keeps growing over decades.
Totally...it was a damn online bookstore! Probably ran off AOL or Netscape dial up. People saw books sales, dude saw e-commerce, infrastructure, and global commercialization, cloud tech, etc...from a bookstore.
Oh, I already told you I am not going to answer that?
It's undeniable vision.
I think you're assuming working class means poor. You can start from working class roots and do alright for yourself. Fact is he never knew his biological father, his step-father came from Cuba with nothing, and his mother's father was a government employee. None of these people were wealthy.
The point is, Bezos didn't come from family wealth, and what his family did have had absolutely no bearing on his or Amazon's success. According to Bloomberg the $250k investment was 3% of the company. He was already raising money from all over the place. Had his family been in the gutter he still would have been able to raise the money he wanted.
Why would the CEO/founders of these companies be geniuses for that? Does Bezos personally think of every successful venture Amazon embark upon? Does he create all of these products himself?
Well I work in tech and don't hold that opinion, so that part is nonsense. I think I'll reserve the categorisation of genius for people like Einstein, Da Vinci, Mozart, Hawking, Chomsky; not just intelligent, sociopathic business men.
I’m not denying what he’s done. It’s an incredible achievement,I’m just disputing the statement that he had no advantage that any other American wouldn’t have access to.
So you say it’s ridiculous to point out that getting given 250k from your parents is a pretty advantageous situation, that anyone would have the same. But you won’t say if you yourself would be able to access those kinds of funds. I wouldn’t, I doubt that many posters on here would be able to get 250k from their parents.
Your statement that he didn’t have any advantage that anyone else would have is just not true. It’s objectively not true. You can laud his achievements without trying to pass him of as someone who came from nothing, when it’s clearly not true. We clearly massively differ on what constitutes working class. At this point we’re going round in circles. You keep bringing up what he’s done with Amazon, and you’re missing the argument. If you honestly believe that he had no advantage over anyone else then that’s your opinion, we’re going to have to disagree.
I've been on this earth for more than 30 years and if I had never spent a cent in my life I wouldn't have 250k. Pretty silly to say that's irrelevant, regardless of what he achieved afterwards. We'll never know what 99% of people would come up with if they had that advantage, which is not just about money, but it means there's a safety net. I have friends who had really good ideas for businesses on paper after college and never even tried, because failing would mean being in debt for most of their lives.
Look at it this way - how many people could turn a smaller amount than 250k into the level of profit on a percentage basis, as he did. Probably very few, possibly no one at all.
Very few probably, since he's an exception. It was an advantage though, which some seem to consider irrelevant.
Sure, but the vast majority of people, those who didn't have his privilege, have zero percent chance of doing it.
There are plenty of "rags to riches" billionaires who grew up poor or middle class who have done it (Oprah, Larry Ellison, Howard Schultz, David Tepper etc.) There are opportunities for people with self-starter mindsets who are willing to put the effort in. The government should also be assisting in leveling the playing field if there are deficiencies in certain segments of society.
I didn't mean literally 0%, there are going to be some examples. But by and large, opportunity dictates success.
Sometimes. For some of them. There are a lot of people out there who are intelligent and hard-working, and still haven't and will never make it.
Couldn't agree more.
He raised a million. 250 was just from his family. I am certain he would have raised the rest from his social circle of finance buddies or whatever.
Also, at $12 an hour if you work from 18-30 you do make like 300K
Again he had advantages but these advantages are common to many -- very few capitalize it. As I said before, most complaining about this do not realize the advantage they have being born in countries in North America and Europe compared to the rest of the world.
When parents give you 250k with the thoughts that you might lose it, it means that they have much more. They will not risk their future livelihood.
Discussing that 250k is not that much and that he wasn't a priviledge guy from a rich family is stupid but that it doesn't go against with the argument that he did something that no one of his peers did and that is impressive, what he accomplished from an economic viewpoint. And at the same time this doesn't go against the argument that he is a exploiter pig and that doesn't go against the argument that knowing all that, most of us goes and buys in amazon
Discussing that 250k is not that much and that he wasn't a priviledge guy from a rich family is stupid but that it doesn't go against with the argument that he did something that no one of his peers did and that is impressive, what he accomplished from an economic viewpoint. And at the same time this doesn't go against the argument that he is a exploiter pig and that doesn't go against the argument that knowing all that, most of us goes and buys in amazon
siri what is 300,000 divided by 12
As with anything in life, yes. It's not a hundred percent fair system. Point is there is a difference between a Jeff Bezos and a Donald Trump or Avram Glazer. There is having family wealth and compounding that with little to no work and then there is entrepreneurship.
In the world of entrepreneurship there are thousands of examples of folks who started with nothing and ended up as millionaires with basic western education. That said, many folks don't even get that base level of education but a majority in developed nations do.
Being a billionaire is a different beast and imo requires a lot of different factors. Luck obviously plays a major role with vision and being a genius which undoubtedly he is. I think the 250k is not as significant of a factor in something as major as becoming a billionaire.
Less than the median income of an American household
If you then pay taxes, eat, study, try not to live with your parents so pay rent/mortgage, maybe a family? maybe spend something for fun and a large etc that doesn't make you and hermit, maybe you get that quantity at your 45-50 with that salary
And I am telling you. his family and him were not being hermits
Don't be facetious
What part of tech do you work at? Have you specifically used AWS or leveraged cloud computing? Do you even realize the the impact Amazon has on the world right now. It all started with Bezos' vision. Don't like the guy but to deny Bezos, Jobs or Gates are geniuses is completely silly.
Everyone you mention might be more of geniuses you can look up to and you might value their contributions more. I'll retract and not say anyone but most people who have some sense of what Bezos has done can attest he is a genius.
Next we'll hear Sundar Pitchai was a privileged Indian...
The poster said if I don't ever spend a cent in my life. It's the sort of argument people use for billionaires or multi-millionaires which I understand but $250k is not the sort of money where you can never achieve it in your life in America.
Anyone with a regular job can get that much in net assets, though thats not relevant to this discussion.
So all the people living paycheck to paycheck are... what? Lazy?