Sometimes investing in your child is a smart move.
Many parents are confronted with the task of having to fund a child's dreams. Often, this is nothing more than a money pit.
At times, however, it does work out.
Sometimes, dropping almost $250,000 can pay off.
Back in the 1990s, the parents of Jeff Bezos were confronted with the same dilemma many parents are. Do you invest in your child's venture or pass it up? Even Bezos himself knew it was risky and alerted his parents of that. They went ahead with the investment, forking over $245,573.
Anyone who was an early investor in Amazon can tell you what the results were. For many parents and children in this situation, family gatherings can be an odd affair if the business goes south. It is safe to say that Jeff Bezos isn't going to skip a holiday gathering out of shame.
Nobody knows if his step-father and mother kept their entire investment. There were some shares which were moved to charity. The shares that are known to move are deducted from the orginal investment. This leaves Bezos parents with a 16.6 million shares of the e-commerce giant.
In other words, their $250,000 invenstment might be worth a cool $30 billion 23 years later.
That amounts to a 12,000,000% return.
Bloomberg did a study to see where the Bezos would fall depending upon if they did sell there stake at different times. Their holdings are not made public so it is really just a guess what is still help by them.
Even if they sold all their stock at the low, they would have cleared $100 million.
Jeff's own siblings do not have to wait for their the money to be passed down. Jackie and Mike Bezos invested $10,000 in 1996 to get 30,000 shares of Amazon. Those two now have $640 million apiece.
So how do you get started funding a venture like this?
“We were fortunate enough that we have lived overseas and we have saved a few pennies so we were able to be an angel investor,” Mike Bezos, a Cuban immigrant who also goes by Miguel, said in Philadelphia. “The rest is history.”
The $30 billion still trails their son's holding by a wide margin. Jeff Bezos worth in Amazon just crossed over $150 billion, making him the richest person in the world.
Of course, Jeff has to show up to work everyday for his largess.
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