
Harvard professor rides 170x return in Moderna stock to become a billionaire - spking
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/he-was-already-one-of-the-richest-teachers-in-the-entire-country-then-came-the-coronavirus-2020-04-23
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101404
Step 1: be a millionaire.

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pmorici
Believe the article indicates step #1 was to found a successful business and
sell it.

"Springer made his first killing during the bubble of 1999, Bloomberg
reported, when he pocketed $100 million by selling his first venture to
Millennium Pharmaceuticals."

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notacoward
If you get a thousand people to each roll a pair of dice two times, you're
almost certain to get at least one person who rolls snake-eyes twice. Then
he'll go around telling everyone how luck was only a minor factor and if you
just copy all of his irrelevant biases/habits you drastically improve your
chances of getting the same outcome.

No, you don't. It's still a crap-shoot.

I don't discount the importance of skill and hard work in this story. I'm sure
there was a _lot_ of that, and I'm sure it was a necessary ingredient ... but
it wasn't a sufficient ingredient. This is still a story about making two bets
and winning twice. A lot of people who were _also_ skilled and hard-working
made bets that were just as good based on information available at the time.
Most didn't even win the first bet, so were never in a position to make the
second. If these two bets hadn't worked out, we'd be reading a different story
about someone else's two bets that did. The names change; the story doesn't.
What lesson, exactly, are we supposed to take away from that?

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lxmorj
Be in position to take these bets in the first place by meeting the necessary
but insufficient requirements within your control: gain skills, work hard
using them.

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econcon
Harvard professor is surely very connected to both administration, regulation,
technology and everything else.

It's literally impossible for an outsider to achieve this feat even if he has
the initial money at his disposal.

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MiroF
You don't get a 17,000% return even with the best insider trading in the
world. You get it with luck.

~~~
phkahler
And to become a billionaire you'd have to bet over $5M to start with.

If I had 5M I'd go mostly dividend stocks and retire.

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Thrymr
Yes, but if you had $100M you could retire _and_ take some risky bets.

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dkarl
His stock was worth $320 million after the IPO, and he let it all ride. On a
single stock in a two-year-old company. Nobody could afford to do that unless
losing most of $320 million wouldn't affect their lifestyle. Being wealthy
explains most of it, but I suspect being 72 years old was a factor, too.

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KKKKkkkk1
_“I have an academic lifestyle. I’m not into ramen noodles, but my friends are
academics, so it doesn’t really behoove me to be flashy,” Springer told
Bloomberg at the time. “I feel that I’ve had more than enough wealth for
myself for some time. I don’t feel I need more.”_

Compare and contrast with:
[https://youtu.be/eb3pmifEZ44](https://youtu.be/eb3pmifEZ44)
[https://youtu.be/mOI8GWoMF4M](https://youtu.be/mOI8GWoMF4M)

~~~
LegitShady
Is this a credible example of Elon Musk derangement syndrome? Why make it
about elon musk? It seems like you're preoccupied with a person who has no
idea you exist.

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ignoramous
_Less than two years later (of the IPO), and the 72-year-old (Timothy
Springer) has ridden a 17,000% return in his Moderna shares — which he paid
about $5 million for in the company’s early stages — into the billionaire
club._

 _The Cambridge, Mass., biotech has jumped 162% this year, as of Wednesday’s
close, surging on hopes for its mRNA-1273 coronavirus vaccine, one of the
first (along with five other vaccines) to begin human trials._

[https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/MRNA?countrycode...](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/MRNA?countrycode=US)

~~~
chadmeister
Wow that was an incredible bet.

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pierrebai
Biotech is hot in general and as the article says, the ones around Harvard
were doing well. So investing 5m in one is not crazy. I'm sure he merely
expected single or double digits return.

He got lucky to be an investor in one that hit it big. Stories are also about
spectacular winners or losers. There are no story on all the investor that got
normal returns last year.

