JA WestenbergWhen Jeff Bezos started Amazon he had nothing but an Ivy League education and $150,000 from his parents.
He didn't let that hold him back.
What's your excuse?
Dan RileyI still have more respect for Bezos (and Gates, and even Zuckerberg) than I do for Musk (or Trump, Koch, etc.).
Building Amazon took some skill, some discipline, and picking the right people. He did have a head start, but it wasn't like being born on 3rd base and thinking he had hit a triple (in the immortal GWB metaphor coined by Molly Ivins).
Philippa Cowderoy@dan131riley @Daojoan It totally required being in the right place at the right time though. Two years later and somebody else would've got the easy starting market and the current net infrastructure gig would've gone to whichever business got there first.
@flippac @Daojoan Oh, absolutely. Luck (for want of a better term) plays a huge role, one that the beneficiaries of that luck often try to deny. Fortunate people want to believe that their good fortune was earned.
That said, Amazon could have been another internet burnout. Bezos was unusually smart about scaling up the business. I don't necessarily like the result--I have a bias towards avoiding Amazon--but I still admire his skill in growing the business.
@dan131riley @Daojoan They certainly could have tripped at moving much beyond books and maybe CDs, which probably would've left a major B&M retailer taking up their present-day role 5-10 years later on if nobody else found an in, yeah.