/biz/ - Business & Finance

What level of success? Billionaire tier success involves a very large amount of luck as your growth has to be astronomical.

It wasn't enough for Jeff to start a successful business, he needed to hit the lottery with his business at the right time. The other stuff: his drive, his intelligence, his commitment to innovation and growth, are talent. Those would have been enough to make him a multi-millionaire, but to explode into a billionaire required being an entrepreneur in the 90's and starting the first major ecommerce company on the nascent web.

Success and luck are definitely tied. I have negative infinity luck which is why crypto started crashing the very moment I bought a coin. Sorry guys, it’s all my fault.

>>24730148
I’m taller and have hair

He did something that no one else at the time was doing. Even though there were other book retailers selling online, amazon removed all the friction of online purchases.

Compare amazon's online store with something like walmart or toysrus which were difficult to find what you needed and check out

>>24730220
I'm not saying it was just luck but, he needed luck.

>>24730271
There was very little luck with amazon. It disrupted the entire online retail space at the time, when other retailers had very little interest in online sales. Even Walmart wasn't ready compete against it. Calling something like amazon luck is just commie cope.

>>24730382
Survivorship bias. You have no idea how many other people/groups tried to do something similar to Amazon but failed due to any amount of reasons. It's not just about having a good idea, it's also about being in the right place at the right time, a large part of which is out of your control.

> Is success just luck or talent is a component too?
You can luck into some success (YouTube celebrity, etc) but you need actual talent to reach "C-level executive of a major company" success.
> Do you think you're objectively better than this guy in any aspect?
I have significantly better taste in women.

Be a major dick. Collect millions from your parents. Start business with lots of support systems in place or steal someone's tech. Oh and one last thing, do it in the 80s or 90s.

>>24730148
it's everything
it's hard work, talent and a fuck load of luck

>>24730498
>Right place right time
in other words born Jewish

>>24730498
Correct. Amazon was one of a dozen different sites I used to use back in the web 1.0 days. It wasn't unique or groundbreaking, it just beat out the competition.

>>24730148
It is most often them all in combo: Insight, grit, networks, luck.

>>24730705
how old are you?

ITT: COPElets

>>24730705
>>24730220
Amazon didn't win because of their online store. Amazon won because AWS, they pretty much invented entreprise cloud which was very profitable and kept amazon.com afloat long enough for all the others to die of capital starvation.

>In April 2015, Amazon.com reported AWS was profitable, with sales of $1.57 billion in the first quarter of the year and $265 million of operating income. Founder Jeff Bezos described it as a fast-growing $5 billion business; analysts described it as "surprisingly more profitable than forecast".[30] In October, Amazon.com said in its Q3 earnings report that AWS's operating income was $521 million, with operating margins at 25 percent. AWS's 2015 Q3 revenue was $2.1 billion, a 78% increase from 2014's Q3 revenue of $1.17 billion.[31] 2015 Q4 revenue for the AWS segment increased 69.5% y/y to $2.4 billion with 28.5% operating margin, giving AWS a $9.6 billion run rate. In 2015, Gartner estimated that AWS customers are deploying 10x more infrastructure on AWS than the combined adoption of the next 14 providers.[32]

Now only if there was a crypto revolutionizing cloud computing at the cutting edge in TEE by creating a decentralized global cloud computing marketplace...

>>24730738
Why do you want to know?

>>24730201
May as well be describing this fat fuck

Luck is a big part. Talent is a factor but much smaller, smaller than many others as well.

For instance, the size of your nose matters quite a lot probably even more than luck and definitely more than talent.

>>24730148
I was reading a lot of info about Bezos for an Amazon job interview, hes for sure a smart guy. I didn't get the job,... fuck him, short Amazon.

>>24730148
>Is success just luck or talent is a component too?
Both.
Circumstantial luck - right place right time, right face, right tie, etc is just, if not more, important.
There are plenty of highly talented people who don't get anywhere because they don't have the luck. If Jeff was born 2 years later nobody would know who he is, probably stacking shelves at your local mart.

>>24730148
i think it's more impressive that Ryan Cohen started what was basically pets.com when amazon was already big
he made profitable large-scale fulfillment centers from scratch
now /smg/ is still hoping Cohen gets his hands on shitty Gamestop and pivots it like Party City did this year

Cohen is pretty much the only reason Gamestop went up like +100% since September

>>24730148
Both
plenty of talented people that never make it, but few who make it aren't in some way talented

>>24730882
DIGITAL

>>24730148
Its baldness. Bald men are more respected, appear more 'manly' and smarter.
Look at that gorgeous dome!
If you're not naturally bald, maybe try shaving your head. Good luck son.

>>24730148
Luck, dedication, who you know, and huge mistakes by big players in the space your are trying to break into. Sears could have been Amazon, but old guys with old thinking prevented it. Walmart could have been Amazon but lack of imagination and old guy thinking prevented. Bezos had the same idea as many others, but through luck and determination and the failure of others, he won.

As far as big book sellers there was another before BN, I forget his name. His many small bookstores were everywhere, but BN and the other (that went out of business) BKd him. Now Amazon looks to be ready to BK BN.

Luck does not matter is you don't try.

Luck definitely helps. Right place right time and all that.

Bezos is not perfect. Amazon prime video is an appalling service that feels like a Chinese knockoff. In order to cement Amazon for decades to come he should now focus on brand image and quality customer service. I also believe branding themselves as an American company could help, as right now they suffer from that Chinese knockoff image and in time this will hurt them. Consider drone delivery, Amazon will be able to do this, but it will also enable other companies to expand into the delivery business more quickly. If IKEA can deliver a desk just as quickly as Amazon, they may find they lose customers because all of a sudden their delivery service is not peerless as the quality difference is noticeable. This could happen in many different areas.

>>24730148
I'm objectively a better father and husband

>>24733266
No one is disputing that here sir. Are you bald though?

It's not only both luck and talent, but ruthlessness as well.

I can objectively poop more if i eat more. Also i do well in warm weather

>>24733315
Baldness > Ruthlessness

Luck is always gonna have a factor into success but for the most part it depends on hard work as well. Jeff was lucky enough to be in the modern era, he was lucky enough to be born in the western world, he was lucky enough to not be murdered along the way. The rest of it though is all his dedication, will, smarts, and patience. I think another what would be a billionare in today money Andrew Carnegie, arrived in the united states poor and no prospects, he became filthy rich through his hard work but was lucky in the circumstances that brought him to america. To pin it all on luck is self-sabotaging because you fear failure and being able to put it on luck rather than skills or hard work is removing your ability to have an influence on your outcomes.

>>24730587
> you need actual talent to reach "C-level executive of a major company" success

luck plays a major role in this as well - primarily timing, demand and economics (micro and macro). also, you can get pretty high at a big company while being a full on autist.

also, when you work at big company there are people who make climbing the ladder their primary responsibility. and, their actually job(s) secondary. these people usually get found out at some point, because someone eventually realizes they're getting paid for producing zero economic value.

t. mid-level senior at F50 financial institution

>>24733544
Baldness = Luck

Satan

>>24733807
Shining dome > Lord of Darkness

>>24730148
Both, and I'm comfier

>>24730214
this dude could easily buy hair and height, he's literally a multi billionaire

>>24733544
>Iwiiiiiiiii
Are you having a stroke sir?

>>24734070
Exactly, but he doesn't because
1) shorter and tinier people live longer
2) hair is for pussies

>>24734070
Actually, he is on the way to become the first trillionaire.

>>24730148
Luck was crucial to Amazon's success
The banks put a guy on the board who told Bezos to borrow a large amount of money at a cheap rate in early 2000
Bezos was completely against this thru fear of unsustainable debt but eventually he was persuaded
Soon after came the dot com crash
and the only reason Amazon survived was because of their positive cash flow due to said loan
A loan that Bezos almost didn't take

>>24735117
>cheap rate in early 2000
why it was cheap in the 2000?

>>24730220
>He did something no one else did
>There were other book retailers online

>>24736411
yeah but how many of those book retailers can now sell you dildos, groceries, meds, video subscriptions, and cloud server space?

>>24730214
Based

autism + luck + raw intlellgence

Jeff rolled a 20 on autism and intelligence and an 18 on luck. He would have gotten 3 20's but he was born to a single mom like a cuck baby.

>>24730148
You need smarts and luck. Anyone saying it's just luck is a commie.

>>24734070
He's confident about his appearance and sees no point changing it. He probably even sees such operations as pathetic.

>>24732216
How do you explain Mark Cuban being a billionaire