The Internet: Where Dot.Com Dreams Come True!

The Internet is made for dreamers - "dot.com dreamers" I call them.
Jeff Bezos was one of the first dot.com dreamers in the sort history of the internet - and one of the most successful. He jumped on the internet bandwagon in 1994, two years after President George Bush signed legislation allowing the public to conduct commerce on the Net.
By 1997 - only three years after he started his internet company - Jeff Bezos was a billionaire!

An e-Commerce Dreamer
Jeff Bezos wasn't just smart - he was a brain! He graduated from Princeton summa cum laude with a double major in electric engineering and computer science. Two years after graduation, he took a job on Wall Street with Bankers Trust Company development in assets. Two years after that, 26 year old Bezos became the youngest vice president in the company's history. By 30, he was multi-millionaire.
I looked like Bezos was on the fast track to become a Wall Street CEO. But he had a dream to own his own business... to be his own boss... and to call his own shots. He understood he'd never be able to do that working for someone else, no matter what job title was on his nameplate.
Bezos kept his eye out for business opportunities. Then one day in early 1994, he read a statistic that would change his life : The internet was growing at a rate of 2,300% a year.
"Outsite of a petri dish, I'd never seen anything grow as fast as the internet," he said. Bezos didn't know what business he would go into. He just knew it would be online. And he knew it would be soon. Bezos made a list of 20 different products that could be sold online and ranked them according to which product would be easiest to sell. Books came in first. He resigned from his job and drew up a computer while his wife drove from New York to West Coast.
He decided to call his new online venture Amazon.Com. As I write this, Amazon.com is five year old company with market capitalization of $25 billion, and the company has become one of the most recognized brand names in North America.

e-Commerce Explosion
Bezos' daring enterprise was the first big success for e-commerce, and it focused the world's attention on the Internet's enormous commercial potential. Even though the jury is out as to when, if ever, Amazon.com will turn to profit, the company paved the way for an e-commerce explosion that is revolutionizing the way wealth is created.
To better understand the wealth-creating capacity of e-commerce, let's compare it to some other giant industries that have dominated the world economy - automobiles, retailing, and computer software. Prior to the internet, it took decades for a business owner to amass a billion dollars.
It took Hendry Ford 23 years to reach his first billion.
Sam Walton needed 20 years to earn his first billion.
It even took Bill Gates 12 years to earn a billion. It took Jeff Bezos three years to earn a billion on the Internet! According to Fortune magazine, Bezos was worth almost $9 billion in 1999, only fie years after starting Amazon.com!

Internet fortunes are mada in months or year - instead of decades. And the scary thing is, the Net is just in its infancy! The Net has been doubling every year for the past 11 years, according to Vint Cerf, president of the Internet Society. He predicts that by the end of 2000, there will be 300 million people online. Wow! (2006 - more then 900 million people online).
As Al Jolson used to say "Folks, you ain't seen nothin' yet!"
Scores of reputable institutions are forecasting incredible growth of the internet and e-commerce in the next few years.Although the growth figure may very widely, all forecasters agree that e-commerce will explode as it enters the 21st century.
You only need to glance at the graphs to recognize that the growth for e-commerce are mind-boggling! A few short years from now, e-commerce revenues are projected to incerease 10-fold!... and the number of online buyers will exceed 100 millions! The world has never seen growth like this before! It's unbelievable! The e-commerce exposion isnt't just a trend - it's a world-wide mega-shift in the buying/selling cycle!
Projections like these mean that a whole of people are going to make a whole lot of money during the coming decade. Folks, we're standing at the edge of an e-commerce explosion just as it's begining to erupt, and those of us who are alert enough to position ourselves to take advantage of this incredible opportunity will sake a claim to hundreds og billions of dollar in the next few years.
Jeff Bezos saw this massive mega-trend unfolding in 1994, and he didn't hesitate. He understood the importance of being in the right place at the right time - and he jumped in with both feet. Three years later he was a multi-billionaire .... and the big growth wave hasn't even started rolling in yet! Amazing.