How to Become a Billionaire
The Jeff Bezos Edition
So what does it take to become a billionaire? Do they share some unique ability or skill? Are they unusually intelligent? Did they discover or invent something extremely valuable? What is the secret sauce?
Economists tell us that unregulated capitalism (aka the “invisible hand of the marketplace”) will inevitably concentrate wealth and create billionaires.1 A Scientific American article tested this theory empirically by modeling millions of individual transactions between pairs of identical “agents” or actors trying to optimize his or her own financial outcome. The result was that 99.9% of the wealth ends up with a single winner.2
It does not matter how much wealth people started with. It does not matter that all the coin flips were absolutely fair. It does not matter that the poorer agent's expected outcome was positive in each transaction, whereas that of the richer agent was negative. Any single agent in this economy could have become the oligarch—in fact, all had equal odds if they began with equal wealth. In that sense, there was equality of opportunity. But only one of them did become the oligarch, and all the others saw their average wealth decrease toward zero as they conducted more and more transactions. To add insult to injury, the lower someone's wealth ranking, the faster the decrease.
On the other hand, conventional wisdom says that you succeed in life by being ‘smart’ and working hard. Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, and Neil Degrasse Tyson are smart. Construction work is hard, picking tomatoes is hard, waiting tables is hard. And there are thousands of small business owners who have built a comfortable life through good decision making, a bit of luck, and hard work.
But although there are millions of happy and successful people there are very few billionaires. (About 1000 in the US and 2500 worldwide.) And clearly not everyone can be one. There’s only so much room at the top. So how do billionaires really happen? Let’s look at one example and see what it took.
Jeff Bezos
Bezos started Amazon in 1994 when hundreds of companies were trying to figure out how to take advantage of the internet explosion, so selling products online was not a unique idea. In fact, Amazon wasn’t even the first on-line bookstore. That achievement goes to Book Stacks Unlimited (later Books.com) which began selling physical books online two years before Amazon.
Bezos success was due to execution. A relentless focus on growth, efficiency, and domination of online retail that grew his stake in Amazon to $109B by 2018. Keys to his success were offering a broad range of products, simplifying the ordering process, and speedy delivery.
But like many successful tech entrepreneurs, Amazon has a reputation for a punishing work environment that pits employees against each other in a Darwinian struggle to survive. In a 2015 New York Times article he was described as a “cold blooded corporate titan”.
Bezos is known for creating an adversarial environment at Amazon, as well as insulting and verbally abusing his employees. As journalist Brad Stone revealed in his book The Everything Store, Bezos issued remarks to his employees such as "I'm sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?", "Are you lazy or just incompetent?", and "Why are you ruining my life?" Additionally, Bezos reportedly pitted Amazon teams against each other, and once refused to give Amazon employees city bus passes in order to discourage them from leaving the office.
At the corporate level working in a demanding environment may be a choice. A bet on the possibility of a potentially life changing reward if the company succeeds and you survive. But for workers at the bottom of the wage scale the calculus is different. Changing jobs takes time and money, additional education or job training, savings to survive a period of unemployment, the loss of health insurance, or the expense of moving to a new location.
But what’s really interesting about Amazon is that long term retention of warehouse workers isn’t a priority. In fact their research found that the best way to maximize productivity and keep costs low is by constant turnover of between 100% to 150% per year.3
Another part of Amazon’s success might be illustrated by their history of lawsuits that allege price fixing and other types of anti-competitive behavior.4 Examples include;
coercing sellers into agreements that prevent them from offering lower prices on competing websites and penalizing sellers who do
copy successful third party products and offer them as Amazon private-label brands which they can promote via manipulation of search algorithms
force sellers to use Fulfillment by Amazon by tying Prime eligibility to its logistics services, stifling competition from independent fulfillment providers
Although these practices may be dismissed by some as ‘the way the game is played” it once again demonstrates a focus on growth and profits at the expense of their customers.
Amazon frequently used its size and broad scope of business to sell certain titles for less than what it paid. More than a decade ago, it was accused of selling some e-books at a loss—for instance, buying titles at $14.99 wholesale and reselling them at $9.99 retail. Because of its enormous scale of operation, Amazon could bear these losses, while most rivals couldn’t. The clear aim of such tactics was to lure long-term customers away from competitors in the market, in order to secure their eventual demise. The vast influence Amazon enjoys today in the publishing supply chain shows just how effective that strategy has been.
The Nation, Trowing the Book at Amazon’s Monopoly Hold on Publishing
These practices are so common among modern tech firms that Cory Doctorow coined the term ‘enshittification’ to describe the product strategy of ignoring the customer experience, or in some ways purposely degrading it, in pursuit of profits. And in the process many times the customers become the product since the information collected from them can be sold to data brokers.5
These companies could be described as extractive, or in economist speak “rent-seeking”. Their purpose is to generate income from their customers and society in general solely to enrich the owners.
Another Path
Bookshop.org is an online bookstore launched in 2020 by Andy Hunter. Their mission is to “connect readers with independent booksellers all over the world”.
”We believe local bookstores are essential community hubs that foster culture, curiosity, and a love of reading, and we’re committed to helping them thrive.Our platform gives independent bookstores tools to compete online and financial support to help them maintain their presence in local communities.” - Bookshop.org
Since their founding they have been endorsed by the American Booksellers Association and are currently the ABA’s official platform for supporting independent, local bookstores when linking to books online. As of 2025 they have generated over $35M of revenue for local book stores.
As a certified B Corp their business model illustrates a dramatically different way to sell books online, and an equally dramatic difference in business philosophy. Rather than conquest and dominance they have built a viable business based on providing a valuable service to readers and local businesses. Andy will probably never be a billionaire, but I suspect he’s doing fine financially.
So who would you rather buy books from? I shopped for Liar’s Kingdom by Andrew Weissmann on Amazon and Bookshop. The price is $27.03 on both websites. With Amazon the profit goes to further enrich Amazon shareholders. Bookshop donates 80% of their gross profit to the local book store of your choice.
And it’s not just books. Amazon has long since lost any monopoly on one-click ordering and fast delivery. I cancelled my relationship with Amazon in 2024 when I decided that integrity was more important than the instant gratification of 2 day shipping. Since then I’ve found that buying direct from the manufacturer is almost as convenient.
There’s More Than One Way to Vote
It’s clear that extreme wealth can be used to weaken our economy and democracy. But wealth comes from consumers, and we can vote with our dollars. When you make a purchase I think it’s worth a bit of research to make sure that you’re supporting a business that is aligned with your ethics. Amazon or Bookshop? Sam’s Club or Costco? Home Depot or your local hardware store? Take a minute to decide who you’d rather do business with and put your money where your principles are.