Jeff Bezos Was One Of The First Investors In Google And Is Probably A Billionaire From That Alone

Shiram was discreetly advising Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were then two Stanford Ph.D. students. The students were trying to invent a new method for searching the internet. Shiram put in $250,000 to become one of the first investors in Google. Six months later, in August of 1998, Bezos and his wife were vacationing in the Bay Area. Bezos reached out to Shiram to meet the Google founders. Shiram invited everyone to his house for a demonstration, and Bezos was immediately hooked. He asked to invest. There was just one problem: the early funding round had closed. Investing in Google during its 2004 IPO would result in a return of about 23 times the initial investment. For example, if you had invested $44,000 back in 2004, you’d be a millionaire today on Google stock alone.