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Did Jeff Bezos just get lucky?
This blew my mind.
The other day on Twitter, I saw one of those blue checkmark "activists" claim that Jeff Bezos "just got lucky"
According to this person, the Amazon founder "got in at the right time" when there was "no competition".
And while there's no point arguing or even debating people like this (they're beyond rational discussion)... there is an important lesson here.
Luck and risk are 2 sides of the same coin.
Because when Bezos raised his first round of funding, around $1 million from 22 people... he talks about his investors taking on a massive risk.
Bezos himself even told investors there was a 70% chance they would never see that money again.
That investment has produced a 14 million percent return over the 27 years since then.
Did they get "lucky?" Absolutely.
Could they replicate that investment with another company? Extremely unlikely.
But were they rewarded for taking a bet on an unproven entrepreneur (Bezos was a financial analyst before starting Amazon) in an unproven industry (e-commerce wasn't even a word back then) in a world that many didn't even know existed (less than 5 million Americans had internet access in 1994).
Of course they were.
So when it comes to making a significant sum of money in stocks... yes... a certain degree of luck is involved.
And a certain degree of risk is involved too.
So it's understanding how to leverage yourself to be in more lucky positions... plus understand risk/reward in any given investment... that allows you to prosper.
That's all for today.
Oliver
P.S.
Amazon was one of the 20 companies we highlighted inside The 8 Step Beginner's Guide to Value Investing
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