I love reading and listening to interviews with some of the greatest investors of our time. Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, David Gardner, Bill Miller, and Catherine Wood are my favorite investors to follow.
Recently I watched an interview with Bill Miller and learned something about him I didn’t know: he was an early investor in Amazon.
He decided to buy Amazon at its IPO (initial public offering) after meeting its CEO, Jeff Bezos.
I’m always fascinated by investors that get in early on companies that go on to become monster winners. I’m curious to know what they saw that others didn’t.
During this interview, Bill Miller touched on a few reasons he chose to invest in Amazon’s IPO:
1. He thought Jeff Bezos was an extremely smart guy, and he liked the fact that all of Amazon’s decisions were based on data and not opinion.
2. He liked their business model of selling directly to the customer, which was very similar to Dell Computers in the late 1990s. Dell totally disrupted the personal computer market and made early investors a fortune.
3. His final point was on the total addressable market. Amazon’s total addressable market has continued to grow over the years to the point where it’s now in the trillions.
The way Bill Miller looked at his investment in Amazon’s IPO was that he knew what his downside risk was (the amount of money he invested, and could lose), but his upside was unlimited.
To me, what holds many investors back is that they are so scared of losing money that they don’t consider the potential upside.
Try to invest in those opportunities that have unlimited upside! Check out my previous posts for some suggestions.
Until next time!
My book, The Stock Market is For Everyone, is a short guide for the beginning, inexperienced investor that is easy to understand and can be put into action immediately.
Click here to be taken to its Amazon page.
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