Bill Miller's Amazon Conviction

A story about legendary investor Bill Miller's conviction in Amazon during the dot-com crash, as told by Anthony Pompliano.

"Bill Miller was one of the best investors over the last 50 years. In the late nineties, people were giving him grief because he said he was a value investor but started to buy tech stocks. Tech exploded and he was outperforming everybody. He was the only investor to outperform the S&P 500 for 10 years straight in the nineties.

Amazon was one of his big bets. When Amazon crashes 90% in the dotcom crash, Bill just backs up the truck and buys more. At one point he was the single largest outside shareholder of Amazon. He only put 15% in.

When you look at that, you realize: One, you have to find Amazon. Two, you have to not get scared when it drops 80-90%. And three, even if you're not scared, you then have to hold your nose and put way more money in to buy all this extra equity.

This guy was a junkie - he was obsessed. In that book about Bill Miller, they talk about how he had seats behind home plate for the Baltimore Orioles and he used to bring research reports and read them in the stands between innings. That's why you end up owning 15% of Amazon - because you did the work. It doesn't happen by accident."