The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea people just weren’t yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which don’t vary in quality-Bezos’ great insight).
So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. It just happened that the second Jeff-Bezos-called me back first to take up my investment offer. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. One was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough-and that time wasn’t far off-people were going to shop online like crazy. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion.
I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries-from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. 01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those. Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur.
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