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You don't get as rich as Jeff Bezos without having a few good ideas, but according to one insider the Amazon founder threatened to spend the company's entire budget on one project.
Amazon is currently the fourth largest company in the entire world and boasts a market cap of $2.377 trillion, but that could have all gone up in smoke if its founder Jeff Bezos had his way with one particular project in 2011.
There's no doubt that Bezos knows what he is doing with both money and a company like Amazon, as he's got more than enough to spend millions on yacht maintenance, buy multiple mansions across the country, and even build a new International Space Station.
Things could be very different though, as according to former Amazon Vice President Ethan Evans, Bezos had to be 'reigned in' by Amazon's CFO at the time over a project that could have sunk the company.
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Founder Mode: Jeff Bezos once threatened to spend every penny Amazon had on a Kindle project when his CFO tried to reign him in.
— Ethan Evans (@EthanEvansVP) September 10, 2024
CFO: "Jeff, we only have so much money."
Jeff: "How much is that? I might want to spend it."
Evans explained in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that this is a classic case of 'founder mode':
"CFO: "Jeff, we only have so much money." Jeff: "How much is that? I might want to spend it.""
While the CFO did manage to convince Bezos away from the idea, his control of 19% of Amazon at the time effectively meant that he could do what he wanted.
"[Bezos] could take any risk he chose in a way that an appointed CEO cannot," Evans revealed, and it certainly opens up an intriguing conversation surrounding the balance between founders and brought-in executives.
The idea of 'founders mode', where a majority-ownership individual is able to brute force their riskier ideas due to greater control, is largely seen as a positive trend in the world of business right now - but it's not always been the way of success.
Evans points out in the post thread that huge names in business like Warren Buffett and Howard Schultz didn't start the companies that made them who they are, so it's far from a hard or fast rule.
Instead, Evans argues that a greater emphasis should be placed on individuals who are able to provide the 'complete package' regardless of their founding status, and details that individuals like Bezos and Elon Musk are "smarter and more driven than most of us will ever be."
While it might have worked out in the end, Bezos' weight as founder might just have sent Amazon in a downward trajectory. And while Evans isn't claiming that Jeff isn't the right fit - far from it - but just that the nature of being a founder, and the riskier decisions that can afford, don't always work out to be the best option every time.
