I say this not because I don't believe he doesn't have an impressive intellect, but because, well, what if someone had his intellect, but worked in an Amazon warehouse due to circumstances outside of their control?

I had a friend once who was very smart. He was always starting new projects to make money, and always quit at the first or second obstacle.

In the back of my head I want to tease out how much of Beso's success is due to aptitude, how much is due to work, how much is due to privilege, and how much is due to luck, and how much is due to ruthlessness.

This might be a futile exercise, all told, but I do think all of those factors have played into his success.

And I wonder how his success and the other factors compound in the perception people have of him.

And even then they will most likely fail. So they need a lot of luck, too.

Succeeding isn't merely lightning striking. There's a lot of perseverance and work involved. Just like nobody rides a bike successfully the first time they get on it. You have to keep getting on it until you learn.

1. Yes--he built an impressive company, and a company ripe for unionization. I've never understood why he allowed so much counterfeit merch on that site? I can't imagine why he didn't stifle that one.

2. He gave away billions in a preventable divorce.

3. Because of vanity, he wore those stupid cowboy hats during that amusement ride for wealthy people. Looking back that PR stunt could have been so much better.

4. I really think his forte is diligence, and drive testosterone gives a man. He was also first to market basically, and tenacious.

Hell-- if he was truely a genius, he probally would have never started the company. I'll go farther. Being smart might be a impediment to a good businessman?

5. I don't know Bezos. I don't know any successful businessman, except one. The owner of Dentek. Oh yea, I do know the CA governor. Both are far from intelligent. They both came from wealthy families, and had sympathetic fathers financing,planning,inventing prototypes in every move in their lives. Intelligence had nothing to do with their success.

6. What makes Bezos special is it sounds like he didn't come from money, and didn't have the sterotypical wealthy father.

And while it absolutely is common to call others smart, I think the following comment is rather special:

> "better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in human affairs."

That comment is, IMO, believably earnest. And any person who requires such a comment to build up their ego is believably pretty smart as well.

I think the distinction between "evil" and "evil genius" is actually kind of important for a world that often anchors its reality to Hollywood narratives. It sets up a more believable antagonist, and makes it clear that -- unlike the grinch -- their heart is not likely to change.

It also sets up the challenge: be smarter. If he was just greedy, it might be a race to the bottom (greed always wins). But in this case it's a race to the top (intelligence seems to win).

I also think the distinction between "greed wins" and "smart wins" extends with a similar lack of mention into other popular "villains" like Elon or THE ZUCK.

At least for me, knowing that the richest person in the world is also considered extremely smart by the smartest people he could pay to work with him... it makes me feel that -- unlike politics -- business is not yet a complete race to the bottom.