I don’t disagree that he is/was super smart (and hardworking), but he came from a fairly wealthy family too. When he was starting Amazon, his parents invested $300,000 to help get it off the ground. You don’t have $300K to pour into your son’s startup if you aren’t wealthy. Also, when he was growing up his maternal grandparents owned a 25,000 acre ranch in Texas, which suggests significant wealth too. From what I understand his family wasn’t ultra wealthy, but they were well off.
Creating a mega-successful company is extremely difficult. Most people who do so are incredibly smart, incredibly hard working, got very lucky with the idea they chose to pursue (right place, right time), AND come from a wealthy family that can invest in their idea and make it feel like much less of a risk to found a company. Bezos fits all of these criteria, as do most successful tech founders.
I seem to remember some study (probably on the front page here) that the most successful people usually don't come from Wealthy with a capital W or poor backgrounds, because in both cases there usually isn't the parental involvement in people's lives needed to instill the right values. This isn't a criticism of poor parents btw, it's just a fact of life for most of them because they're out there surviving.
The most successful people on average have upper middle class/rich but not titan of industries parents. Rich enough that they have time to spend with their kids, pay for tutoring, that sort of stuff, but not rich enough to have the nanny raise the kid.
Note mentioning that “smart” in this context usually means “able to get a large return on investment”. Making it a redundant trait description.
“Good at business” is a better description. But people aren’t normally satisfied with calling billionaires “good at business” so they add this glittering “smart”, as if he is somehow a better person then you or I, which is a ridiculous statement.
> He was high school valedictorian, a National Merit Scholar, and a Silver Knight Award winner in 1982.
> ... In 1986, he graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a 4.2 GPA and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree (B.S.E.) in electrical engineering and computer science
> ... After Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986, he was offered jobs at Intel, Bell Labs, and Andersen Consulting, among others. He first worked at Fitel, a fintech telecommunications start-up, where he was tasked with building a network for international trade. Bezos was promoted to head of development and director of customer service thereafter. He transitioned into the banking industry when he became a product manager at Bankers Trust. He worked there from 1988 to 1990. He then joined D. E. Shaw & Co, a newly founded hedge fund with a strong emphasis on mathematical modelling in 1990 and worked there until 1994. Bezos became D. E. Shaw's fourth senior vice-president at the age of 30.
Yes, he’s very good at business, but he’s clearly very “book smart” too.
Creating a mega-successful company is extremely difficult. Most people who do so are incredibly smart, incredibly hard working, got very lucky with the idea they chose to pursue (right place, right time), AND come from a wealthy family that can invest in their idea and make it feel like much less of a risk to found a company. Bezos fits all of these criteria, as do most successful tech founders.