# The Fire Phone Mistake That Made Me Rich

In 2014, I sold Amazon for a simple reason – the Fire Phone was a terrible idea. Making quick money 3 times over made me feel like an investment genius, but ultimately, I sold at a loss because I was dissatisfied with one product.

Laughing to death, now Amazon has become a 14-fold bull stock.

My mistake wasn't in being bearish on the Fire Phone—it really did flop. My mistake was overestimating the importance of a failed product and underestimating the founder's long-term execution capability. If Bezos and Amazon had always stayed in their comfort zone, there would be no AWS, Prime, or Whole Foods, which are now cash cows.

**Key Insight**: Founder-led companies often outperform the market because they dare to experiment and learn from mistakes. Giving them time to iterate will earn more than trying to time the market with your own perceived cleverness.

This lesson saved me once. At the beginning of 2023, I bought TransMedics (TMDX), and CEO Hassanein suddenly announced the acquisition of an airline. My first reaction was "It's over, the gross margin is going to collapse," and the market thought so too, leading to a halving of the stock price.

But this time I didn't sell. I remembered Amazon's course. As a result, by the end of the year, the CEO articulated a vision for a nationwide logistical network - using its own aviation to streamline the entire process of organ transport. Two years later, TMDX rose threefold from its low point, sales doubled, and its own aviation accounted for 78% of transplant volume.

The gross margin has indeed dropped a bit, but the free cash flow margin has exploded, and the net profit margin has reached 17%. This is a case of the founder using a "bad idea" to build a moat.

Now TMDX aims to double the number of transplants to 10,000 and expand into kidney transplants and the international market. There will definitely be new controversies, but I have learned — **do not run away just because you can't understand it in the short term**. In the long run, the founder's execution capability is more accurate than your intuition.