Big things start small. Just keep pushing

It’s an adage that guides how Amazon founder and prominent shareholder letter writer Jeff Bezos operates his businesses. He elaborates in an interview with CNBC:

“The biggest oak starts from an acorn. You’ve got to be willing to let that acorn grow into a little sapling, and then finally into a small tree and then maybe one day it’ll be a big business on its own.”

Bezos sees this analogy as an acorn, whereas investor Warren Buffett (whose shareholder letters might’ve been an inspiration for Bezos’s) sees it as a snowball.

A young Buffett would make his money first aggressively in a newspaper route, then by investing in dozens of small businesses. His processes and work ethic enabled him to invest and compound that capital into a billion dollars, and then more, snowballing into the wealth he has today.

Everyday, there are plenty of people of all ages at the top of the hill. They’re interested in packing snowballs. Some of them dive right in, grabbing whatever they can find and getting started. Others stand waiting, watching these keeners to see if they can make the same snowball faster or with less work. Many, seeing bigger snowballs, or ones that grow faster, get discouraged. They abandon their snowball, leaving it stationary on the hill. If they’re lucky and it’s big enough, maybe it moves…