Jeff Bezos convinced his siblings to invest $10,000 each in his online startup Amazon. Today, their stake is worth $1.3 billion.

In the mid-’90s, convincing someone to invest $10,000 in an online bookstore – at a time when most people were just getting to grips with dial-up modems – was about as difficult as launching a startup selling decorative stones during the tech boom. But Jeff Bezos succeeded. And not just among venture capitalists, but also among his family members: his brother Mark and sister Christina took a risk, and their investment turned into $1.55 billion each – provided they didn’t sell their shares.

In 1996, Bezos, armed with limitless vision and an Amazon website, offered his relatives a deal: for $10,000, each could get 30,000 shares of his then-tiny company.

In 2018, Bloomberg calculated that Mark and Christina’s shares were already worth $640 million each – a staggering return on the $10,000 invested. But Amazon’s stock hasn’t stopped rising. At an exchange rate of $221.30 per share as of December 31, 2024 (versus $91 in 2018), their stakes are now valued at about $1.55 billion each – representing a return of 15,499,900%.

Bezos’ pursuit of long-term growth has turned Amazon into a $2.33 trillion giant that has changed retail, logistics, cloud technology – and even how people buy toilet paper.