Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on the ‘Hardest test’ he has ever faced

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that raising the company’s first $1 million was the hardest thing he had ever done. Speaking at The New York Times DealBook Summit in December 2024 with moderator Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bezos recalled that in 1995, to raise the first $1 million in seed funding for Amazon, he sold 20% of the company at a $5 million valuation to 22 angel investors, each contributing around $50,000. It took him about 60 pitches to secure those investments. At the time, many potential investors did not even know what the Internet was, Bezos said. He added that he warned them that there was a 70% chance they would lose their money. “If those 22 had said no,” he said, “none of this would exist.”