Technology
How Jeff Bezos Built his Amazon Empire
On Friday afternoon, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos briefly passed Warren Buffett to become the world’s third-richest person. Amazon shares have been up 54% since February, propping up his net worth to an impressive $65 billion.
How Jeff Bezos Built his Amazon Empire
Today’s infographic is from Funders and Founders, and it visualizes the career of Jeff Bezos in creating his “Everything Store”.
Image courtesy of: Funders and Founders
While Bezos was ahead of Buffett by about $300 million on Friday afternoon, Amazon’s share price later dipped at the close to erase the lead.
This likely isn’t the last time that a rising Bezos will be biting at the heels of Bill Gates ($88.7B), Amancio Ortega ($73.5B), and Warren Buffett ($65.1B).
How Did Bezos Do It?
“We are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.” – Jeff Bezos
Perhaps the most enthralling element of the Jeff Bezos story is his resolute commitment to executing a long-term vision, all while the rest of the world could not comprehend it.
The company ran 20 years without showing signs of significant profit, and it was regularly criticized in the media. Pundits saw Amazon as a growing online book store that couldn’t make money. They didn’t get the bigger picture.
And while the world debated Amazon’s aggressive expansion and polarizing nature, Bezos and his team stayed focused on execution. Even if people didn’t see the vision for the “everything store”, it didn’t mean that Amazon couldn’t build it.
They were willing to be misunderstood for a long time in order to follow the vision – one that was written down by Bezos in a famous napkin sketch:
Image courtesy of: Amazon
Note that in this sketch, which is now over 15 years old, that there is no “take profits” offshoot. It’s a closed loop that uses free cash flow to reinvest back into the established business plan of providing low cost leadership.
And now that Amazon has executed on this plan successfully, it is finally time for profits. That’s why the company had a record quarter earlier this year, and why analysts expect Q2 to be just as impressive.
Watch out Warren, because Bezos isn’t done yet.
Markets
Charted: What are Retail Investors Interested in Buying in 2023?
What key themes and strategies are retail investors looking at for the rest of 2023? Preview: AI is a popular choice.
Charted: Retail Investors’ Top Picks for 2023
U.S. retail investors, enticed by a brief pause in the interest rate cycle, came roaring back in the early summer. But what are their investment priorities for the second half of 2023?
We visualized the data from Public’s 2023 Retail Investor Report, which surveyed 1,005 retail investors on their platform, asking “which investment strategy or themes are you interested in as part of your overall investment strategy?”
Survey respondents ticked all the options that applied to them, thus their response percentages do not sum to 100%.
Where Are Retail Investors Putting Their Money?
By far the most popular strategy for retail investors is dividend investing with 50% of the respondents selecting it as something they’re interested in.
Dividends can help supplement incomes and come with tax benefits (especially for lower income investors or if the dividend is paid out into a tax-deferred account), and can be a popular choice during more inflationary times.
| Investment Strategy | Percent of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Dividend Investing | 50% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 36% |
| Total Stock Market Index | 36% |
| Renewable Energy | 33% |
| Big Tech | 31% |
| Treasuries (T-Bills) | 31% |
| Electric Vehicles | 27% |
| Large Cap | 26% |
| Small Cap | 24% |
| Emerging Markets | 23% |
| Real Estate | 23% |
| Gold & Precious Metals | 23% |
| Mid Cap | 19% |
| Inflation Protection | 13% |
| Commodities | 12% |
Meanwhile, the hype around AI hasn’t faded, with 36% of the respondents saying they’d be interested in investing in the theme—including juggernaut chipmaker Nvidia. This is tied for second place with Total Stock Market Index investing.
Treasury Bills (30%) represent the safety anchoring of the portfolio but the ongoing climate crisis is also on investors’ minds with Renewable Energy (33%) and EVs (27%) scoring fairly high on the interest list.
Commodities and Inflation-Protection stocks on the other hand have fallen out of favor.
Come on Barbie, Let’s Go Party…
Another interesting takeaway pulled from the survey is how conversations about prevailing companies—or the buzz around them—are influencing trades. The platform found that public investors in Mattel increased 6.6 times after the success of the ‘Barbie’ movie.
Bud Light also saw a 1.5x increase in retail investors, despite receiving negative attention from their fans after the company did a beer promotion campaign with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Given the origin story of a large chunk of American retail investors revolves around GameStop and AMC, these insights aren’t new, but they do reveal a persisting trend.
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