
How Jeff Bezos parents reacted to son leaving Wall Street to sell books online - helmsdeep
https://www.businessinsider.de/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-parents-wall-street-2018-4?r=UK&IR=T
======
samfisher83
>It didn't take long for Jeff Bezos to get his parents on board. According to
Stone, the couple invested $100,000 in Amazon in 1995 — even though Jeff Bezos
had warned them there was a 70% chance they'd never see that money again.

>Mike Bezos told Stone that, even though they'd seen the business plan, they
didn't exactly understand it. "As corny as it sounds, we were betting on
Jeff," Mike Bezos said.

That line so great. They were just betting on their son even though they
didn't understand the business at the time. I wonder what percentage he gave
them? Having believe in you even if its just your parents probably was a big
reason he was so successful.

~~~
Regardsyjc
Jeff Bezos' cushy job was at D. E. Shaw Group and according to the book The
Everything Store, he worked with D. E. Shaw directly, the man who was part of
the quant trading wall street innovation. When the internet was starting, they
worked together to see what kind of business opportunities might come about
due to this new technological innovation, and that's where they came up with
the idea for the everything store. Shaw wanted Bezos to build the everything
store within the company but Bezos decided to leave and build it on his own in
Washington (picked because of their small population and thus less need to
collect sales tax and proximity to Silicon Valley). Bezos then proceeded to
hire people from his old team at D. E. Shaw after their non-compete of 2 years
passed. After their IPO, he let many of his people go to restructure. I could
be totally wrong or the book might be lies, but I found that history scary.

Main point though is that Bezos was literally a genius, he was part of an
experimental educational program for gifted children, and he was one of the
most gifted in that program. He was also ruthless. I want to say, how could
you not bet on someone like that? He was working with geniuses, had a vision,
and the ability to lead them.

