This is Planet Money from NPR.

A few months ago, I heard about a guy who had a small fortune taken from him.

Walter Schram.

We got Walter on the phone to ask him about his missing money and he was angry,

but you should know that the angry version of Walter Schram sounds like this.

It would have been nice, but I guess that's gone.

Walter is very chill.

And ironically, it's that trait that both brought him a small fortune and

cost him it.

Here's what happened.

Walter is Italian and in the late 90s, he had the brilliant idea to start a company selling

Italian specialty products online, largely to Americans.

Like coffee machines, pasta machines, coffee.

At first, it seemed like things were going really well.

Except for that around the same time, another online retailer launched Amazon.

They were bigger, seemed to have endless money.

They're not even worried about turning a profit at this point.

But this is not where things go south for Walter really.

It was unfortunate, sure, but to him, the Amazon thing was just another great investment opportunity.

I said, let's set up an account with E-Trate and buy a few Amazon shares for a few thousand dollars.

So you're thinking, what if we can't beat them, join them?

Join them, exactly.

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