This issue features America’s richest persons, and no surprise, Jeff Bezos is the richest in the U.S.—and the world. Amazon has gone orbital since first raising capital in 1994. Founder Bezos had asked 22 friends and family members to put in $50,000 each, for a total of $1.1 million, giving Amazon a valuation of $6 million. An investor and later board member, Tom Alberg, was alarmed at the audacity of Bezos keeping 80% of his startup. But Alberg later said he invested anyway because he liked Bezos’s laser focus. Good thing. Today Amazon is worth $1.65 trillion. Bezos has multiplied Amazon’s value by 275,000 times since that first investment.
Bezos is surely the modern world’s champion wealth creator. But even CEOs who’ve grown value by 1,000 times are exceptionally rare. I recently interviewed one of them—Coupa CEO Rob Bernshteyn—for my new Forbes video series “Scaling Up.”
Coupa was founded in 2006 by two entrepreneurs who had an idea of using cloud-hosted software and artificial intelligence to automate business spending. But Coupa struggled and by early 2009 the founders were out. The new CEO, Bernshteyn, was 34 years old and had never held the top job. This unlikely CEO had a rough start. The world economy was at the depths of the financial crisis and recession. Coupa was rapidly running out of cash. After dozens of calls, and with days to spare, Bernshteyn was able to raise $7 million that left Coupa valued at a very humbling $15 million. Today, Coupa is publicly traded and worth $18 billion. Over 11 ½ years, Bernshteyn has multiplied Coupa’s value by almost 1,500 times. How did he do it?
I believe Bernshteyn has a mastery of three essential tech CEOs skills: One is a vision of where technology is taking the world. Bernshteyn doesn’t hide his vision; rather, he writes books about it. In September he released his latest—Smarter Together: How Communities Are Shaping the Next Revolution in Business. Now, I’m always on guard when I hear the word “communities” because it is often a pretext for well-intended, but anti-business, ideas about social engineering. Bernshteyn means something else. The “community” is the sum of your customers, suppliers and partners—your ecosystem, in other words. And the more data that is shared within your ecosystem, the smarter everyone within that ecosystem becomes.
Bernshteyn uses Waze to illustrate what he means. Waze is a map and traffic app that shows a driver the best route to a destination, including the location and time-delay estimates of traffic jams. Waze gathers its data from two sources: Waze customers who actively report on traffic conditions (i.e. “a tree fell on the road, blocking the left lane; expect delays”) and from the GPS data generated from Waze customers who are simply driving.
For business procurement and expenses, the same principle applies. Real-time pricing, shipping times, areas of potential delay and other problems can be seen by all in a shared ecosystem. Bernshteyn is convinced that most companies will come to see that sharing their data to create the benefits of larger ecosystem data sets will lead to better predictive analysis and thus will in most cases outweigh privacy concerns. “Figure out what is truly proprietary to your business,” he advises. “Keep that private, but share the rest. You’ll benefit.”
Bernshteyn’s other two CEO superpowers are toughness and empathy, two qualities that rarely exist within the same individual. That Bernshteyn has both traces to his background. He was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the former Soviet Union. His Jewish parents applied to emigrate to the U.S. but had to wait five years. They landed in a poorer New York City suburb with $1,000 in their pockets. Bernshteyn remembers raiding garbage bins for used furniture. Vision, toughness and empathy. Combine all three, and you might have that rare 1,000x CEO.
Rich Karlgaard is editor at large at Forbes. As an author and global futurist, he has published several books, the latest of which is Late Bloomers, a groundbreaking exploration of what it means to be a late bloomer in a culture obsessed with SAT scores and early success. For his past columns and blogs visit our website at www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was down more than 200 points in late-morning trading, weighed down by losses in the technology, base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets also fell.
The S&P/TSX composite index was down 239.24 points at 22,749.04.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 312.36 points at 40,443.39. The S&P 500 index was down 80.94 points at 5,422.47, while the Nasdaq composite was down 380.17 points at 16,747.49.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.80 cents US compared with 74.00 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down US$1.07 at US$68.08 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up less than a penny at US$2.26 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$2.10 at US$2,541.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was down four cents at US$4.10 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 150 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in technology, financial and energy stocks, while U.S. stock markets also pushed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 171.41 points at 23,298.39.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 278.37 points at 41,369.79. The S&P 500 index was up 38.17 points at 5,630.35, while the Nasdaq composite was up 177.15 points at 17,733.18.
The Canadian dollar traded for 74.19 cents US compared with 74.23 cents US on Wednesday.
The October crude oil contract was up US$1.75 at US$76.27 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up less than a penny at US$2.10 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$18.70 at US$2,556.50 an ounce and the December copper contract was down less than a penny at US$4.22 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 29, 2024.
The crypto market has recently experienced a significant downturn, mirroring broader risk asset sell-offs. Over the past week, Bitcoin’s price dropped by 24%, reaching $53,000, while Ethereum plummeted nearly a third to $2,340. Major altcoins also suffered, with Cardano down 27.7%, Solana 36.2%, Dogecoin 34.6%, XRP 23.1%, Shiba Inu 30.1%, and BNB 25.7%.
The severe downturn in the crypto market appears to be part of a broader flight to safety, triggered by disappointing economic data. A worse-than-expected unemployment report on Friday marked the beginning of a technical recession, as defined by the Sahm Rule. This rule identifies a recession when the three-month average unemployment rate rises by at least half a percentage point from its lowest point in the past year.
Friday’s figures met this threshold, signaling an abrupt economic downshift. Consequently, investors sought safer assets, leading to declines in major stock indices: the S&P 500 dropped 2%, the Nasdaq 2.5%, and the Dow 1.5%. This trend continued into Monday with further sell-offs overseas.
The crypto market’s rapid decline raises questions about its role as either a speculative asset or a hedge against inflation and recession. Despite hopes that crypto could act as a risk hedge, the recent crash suggests it remains a speculative investment.
Since the downturn, the crypto market has seen its largest three-day sell-off in nearly a year, losing over $500 billion in market value. According to CoinGlass data, this bloodbath wiped out more than $1 billion in leveraged positions within the last 24 hours, including $365 million in Bitcoin and $348 million in Ether.
Khushboo Khullar of Lightning Ventures, speaking to Bloomberg, argued that the crypto sell-off is part of a broader liquidity panic as traders rush to cover margin calls. Khullar views this as a temporary sell-off, presenting a potential buying opportunity.
Josh Gilbert, an eToro market analyst, supports Khullar’s perspective, suggesting that the expected Federal Reserve rate cuts could benefit crypto assets. “Crypto assets have sold off, but many investors will see an opportunity. We see Federal Reserve rate cuts, which are now likely to come sharper than expected, as hugely positive for crypto assets,” Gilbert told Coindesk.
Despite the recent volatility, crypto continues to make strides toward mainstream acceptance. Notably, Morgan Stanley will allow its advisors to offer Bitcoin ETFs starting Wednesday. This follows more than half a year after the introduction of the first Bitcoin ETF. The investment bank will enable over 15,000 of its financial advisors to sell BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC. This move is seen as a significant step toward the “mainstreamization” of crypto, given the lengthy regulatory and company processes in major investment banks.
The recent crypto market downturn highlights its volatility and the broader economic concerns affecting all risk assets. While some analysts see the current situation as a temporary sell-off and a buying opportunity, others caution against the speculative nature of crypto. As the market evolves, its role as a mainstream alternative asset continues to grow, marked by increasing institutional acceptance and new investment opportunities.
