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> I find it hard to believe there was any sort of real “risk” to Bezos future ability to earn a more than average wage. You are ignoring opportunity costs [0].
by mrep 7y ago
> I find it hard to believe there was any sort of real “risk” to Bezos future ability to earn a more than average wage.
You are ignoring opportunity costs [0]. He quit a highly lucrative job in finance to attempt a startup where he probably payed himself like 1/10th the wages of his old job during the initial years while he established his business.
With like 90% of startups failing [1], that is a massive risk in the hope of future stock worth for decreased current wages.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
[1]: https://medium.com/swlh/why-90-of-startups-fail-and-what-to-do-about-it-b0af17b65059 https://medium.com/swlh/why-90-of-startups-fail-and-what-to-...
- herennow88 7y agoYou’re ignoring the boring but more important human aspect for abstraction: he was capable of getting such a job once and was well connected to a couple dozen people that could toss $50k/each at him on a pipe dream. If it failed, he would have had plenty of options relative to the average worker.
- mrep 7y agoAnd he lost out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of real income while pursuing said startup. In his case, the stock that he created ended up being worth way more but for 90% of companies, that stock will be worth nothing.