From tiny acorns, mighty oak trees grow.
And when it comes to Amazon, a metaphorical 'Amazon rainforest' has grown from Jeff Bezos' garage.
Starting out as an online bookstore from Bezos' home, Amazon has grown to become the second-biggest retailer in the world and landed Bezos in second place when it comes to the world's richest. Although his fortune of $242.5 billion puts him quite some way behind Elon Musk's current $429.2 billion, Bezos isn't exactly short of a dollar or two.
Amazon was officially founded on July 5, 1994, after Bezos relocated from New York to Bellevue, Washington.
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A move to Bellevue was key to Bezos' strategy, with the future billionaire picking it due to its smaller population for sales tax purposes, proximity to a major book distribution warehouse in Oregon, and an abundance of tech talent from Microsoft and the University of Washington.
A little over a month after Amazon was founded, Bezos posted a job advert on Usenet, looking for a software developer in a post titled "Well-capitalized Seattle start-up seeks Unix developers."
The post reads: "Well-capitalized start-up seeks extremely talented C/C++/Unix developers to help pioneer commerce on the Internet."
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The ideal candidate needed experience in "designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable) systems." Setting some pretty strict parameters, they should also be able to do their job in a third of the time that 'most competent' people would think possible.
As well as boasting a 'BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or the equivalent' and 'top-notch communication skills', desirable skills included 'familiarity with web servers and HTML'. In terms of benefits, Bezos promised 'talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers'. Although you'd be required to move to Seattle, Amazon would 'help' cover moving costs.
There's no mention of a salary, but instead, Bezos' advert says: "Your compensation will include meaningful equity ownership."
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Considering Amazon is currently valued at around $2.41 trillion, getting in at this early stage could've seen you make some serious bank on the back of Bezos' emerging online marketplace.
Replying to the post on Reddit, one person wrote: "So incredibly easy to dismiss right? Yet acted on would net the person tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars within two decades. Insane."
Another had their mind blown as they added: "Whoever took that job almost certainly made a lot of money just off the stock options :O Unless they sold them early lol."
A third said: "One of my friends responded to a similar ad - something in IT. He retired in 2015 with stock options, and is now so incredibly wealthy that it makes my head spin. Upside: he is also incredibly GENEROUS."
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We'd love to know what happened to the person(s) who landed the lucrative role, although most guessed they'd be long gone from Amazon or sold their equity share - likely not knowing its worth in 2024.