You don't become a billionaire by spending money. It is, by definition, hoarding money.
Edit to add: I also don't take financial advice from chronic gamblers.
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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You go back in time to when you're living paycheck to paycheck and zero financial literacy. You convince yourself to invest $100/month in Amazon no matter what, because it will be worth it. You eat nothing but instant ramen, forego preventative care, get sick from malnutrition. Your quality of life is horrible because you forego basic necessities to invest in Amazon. The dot com bubble wipes out 90% of Amazon's value but you continue to invest because your past self told you about this, but if you just endure, Amazon will recover and you will be a millionaire.
In this timeline, Amazon never recovers and goes bankrupt. On Twitter, you read a post about George Shaheen's wedding, and how he's entitled to his billions, despite predatory and exploitative practices, because his wealth could have been yours. If you had only invested $100/month since 1996 into WebVan, you'd be a millionaire.
Investing is, at the end of the day, a gamble.
I understand not everyone can afford to gamble $25 a week but it's not really the difference between eating ramen and eating steak. It's more like the difference between eating ramen and eating rice. It's not going to improve your life dramatically, your health is still going to suffer and it's not going to cover the cost of preventative care in the US.
You'd have to be clairvoyant to have known that in 1997, though. And if you're clairvoyant, casinos offer a better return on investment.
Yes, if you'd have put $100/mo into pets.com you'd have $0 now. Fun fact: Amazon invested heavily into pets.com.
Pets.com is held up as the example of these late 90s tech bubble. No one could ever believe your have pet supplies sold online when you have a pet store a short drive away.
The problem with the company's business plan was that pet supplies of all types—food, toys, clothing, and so on—could be found easily at the nearest grocery or pet store. Given the choice between ordering online and waiting for delivery or walking into the nearest store to buy the product and take it home immediately, the majority of people preferred the latter.
But now Chewy is a very successful company with a loyal customer base and even Amazon covers much of what was sold at Pets.com.
People will say things like it was a good idea that was too early. But at the time it was ridiculed for the naivete and exuberance of people in the tech world.
I was 6, where the fuck am i getting $100 a month.
Lemonade stand. Spiced up with some crystal meth.
Yeah you just needed a 100 bucks a month as a 6 year old and also ESP to know which stock to pick!
Its your fault your poor, now leave him alone while he spends daddy's money.
What a moron.
If people could predict the future stock market speculation and all that wouldn't exist.
Knowing which company will take off is impossible and just guesstigambling.
I can't be fucked to type it all out but I was about to write a fake reinventing of the S&P500 and 401ks - which is the "safe" [citation needed] version
Yeah and if I kept investing $100 a month in the lottery it could be worth $500M today. Or it could be worthless because, as this clown already knows, no one can predict the next 30 fucking years like some clairvoyant.
OK, Biff, if you're so smart, what's the play right now? Why aren't you investigating $100 a month in a small online bookstore that will one day be a tech supergiant?
1998: I invested in this small company that makes this pretty decent way to search for things on the internet. Can't imagine it will be able to compete with the big boys like Yahoo!Search or even edge out the cool new guys like AskJeeves, but I like that they have "dont be evil" as part of their company rules.
2025: I own every detail of your lives. Our eyes are always watching. I'm richer than God. Our search engine is almost useless.
And if you're 18 and can't afford housing, remember, his birth date could have been your birth date.
Capitalism works when people can participate
OK then, let's allow all people to participate by giving everyone their fair share of Amazon and other big businesses.
I'm all for communising them. I'm just not sure that capitalism is the right expression for that, but I can't come up with a better word...
Communtarianizing?
You should have invested in the exploration of America
If you'd invested $100 a month as amazon lost money for years driving 'mom and pop' businesses, starting with those evil bookshop owners, out of business before exploiting monopoly, getting local authorities to pay to host their distribution centres while the employees need food stamps to survive, you'd be rich now. Capitalism works.
Bezos, former hedge fund guy who was given hundreds of thousands from family to start amazon, knows he is despised. He actually personifies the phrase 'shit-eating grin'.
Well, why weren't you investing 100 USD in Amazon every month since 1997, Vijay? Or since 2007?
Wow so smart, "Capitalism works when people can participate." FUCK OFF. How about the obscene number of people living paycheck to paycheck or rely on credit cards to get by. They literally don't have $100 to invest in anything other than their daily survival. And it gets worse every day as the cost of living goes up and real purchasing power remains stagnant for so many.
Capitalism works when people can participate - wake me up when these people can participate.
i don't want capitalism to work. I want it to die with Bezos and all those who invested 100$ or more in Amazon
Not everybody can fucking participate, Vijay.
Also, you can't do basic arithmetic.
Well based on the principle of compounding interest I think that number might be right. It really kind of depends on your returns every month.
His logic flaw here is that millions gamble on startups like that and hindsight is very much 20/20.
Buying stocks is kind of like sports betting for a different target audience this way.
$38,400 invested would be $100/mo. for 29 years, not 28.
That’s why you’re only supposed to invest in successful ideas, duh.
It's always a good idea, before investing in any company, to call the head office and say "I need a straight answer, so don't give me the runaround: will you fail?". If they say "no", it is a safe investment. If they say "yes", it is not quite as safe an investment but you may still want to invest.
Wow, the real investment tips are once again buried deep in the comments
There's no compounding interest here. You have to look up what the share price was every month for 28 years to find out how many shares you would buy (after trade fees) and then also keep track of share splits and dividend payments. Finally you add the total dividend with share number multiplied with current share price. I promise you that Perplexity AI didn't do a single step of this. Instead it put down something that sounds likely.
Finally you have to throw all of this away since the premise is completely flawed. It's not Jeff specifically but the fact that capital is taxed less than labour people are protesting.
You're missing a non-formulated assumption that you should have diversified your investments, so it's 100$ in Amazon, and 100$ in competitor2, 3, 4,... Get to 10 and you have a good chance 1 or 2 will make it!
What? You can't afford 1000$ of risky investments per month??
Bezos wasn’t diversified like that though
Yeah right? See also: Cryptocurrencies.
Also they spelled Perplexity wrong.
Also I stopped using Perplexity, despite a 2 year free premium membership, when the CEO decided to be a dipshit.
when the CEO decided to be a dipshit.
Do you know how little that narrows it?
According to Perplexity...
And already I cannot trust your argument on anything whatsoever because you used an LLM to try and prove your point.
He didn't even bother to spell it right
Good thing one of us caught that.
Color me prplpected
In 1997, $100 was worth about $200 in today's dollars btw
Inflation is for the poor.
Thanks, it's really comforting to know that I could've been participating in exploitation of workers and sellers myself. Monopolized markets are working, guys!
Tbf most people would much rather be the person earning out of that exploitation than be the one being exploited for pennies
No one wants to be on the "being exploited" end, but that's the main feature of current capitalism: a million losers for each winner
Just do that 10,000 times over 300,000 years and you'll have as much as Bazy Boy
Capitalism works when people can participate and be claolirvoyant and see a massive shift in the communications industry leading to massive monopolies that are able to abuse society!
It's only $100/month for you too to support a not starving dragon at Amazon HQ.
Same goes for Microsoft, Apple and Google. Everyone thought it would go similarly for Pets.com too but then 2000 happened.
The Linkedin guy's advice is 100% true though, you're just better off diversifying your risk.
his wealth also could have been your wealth.
I wasn't alive in the 90s much less an adult that could legally invest.
Well you should have worked harder to have been born and be an adult! Capitalism works when you're able to participate and not be in utero!