#752 Invest dot Pizza

I read the statistics appalled. The number of new claims for unemployment rose by 407,000 in the last week. Nearly half a million people out of jobs.
Even the white-collar folks are turning on each other. The mortgage bankers association is having trouble getting a mortgage on their new building in Washington, D.C. The bank wants more money down, and they’re also adding a bump to the interest rate.
What did the mortgage folks call it to the sub-primers? An adjustment? A correction? A reset?
You know chickens are slim pickin’s when the foxes start fighting in the henhouse.
But amidst all this negative news is a shining light of entrepreneurial optimism. A beacon of buoyancy, a shaft of radiant hope.
The power of pizza.
That’s right pizza, that quintessentially American food from Italy. But more important is the power to exploit the American obsession with pizza. All because on one man’s foresight, one man’s vision, one man’s dream.
14 years ago. The year was 1994. Our economy was surging with high tech. The internet was young, and full of wild schemes for instant success. Amazon.com entrepreneurs were bazillionaires and they hadn’t sold a single book. Google wasn’t even a spark in Page and Brin’s eye, much less a verb. We were in the midst of what came to be called the tech bubble.
After it popped.
But one man held on to his dream. He knew that one day, maybe not then, maybe not ten years from then, but one day, his little 20 dollar investment would pay off.
20 bucks bought Chris Clark a domain name. And he has nursed it ever since. Until today, 14 years from the inception of his startling clear vision, the payday has come. He sold his domain name for 2.6 million dollars.
The name of the domain? Pizza dot com.
That’s it, simple, accessible, even folks in other countries can grasp it immediately.
Pizza dot com. Dinner is only a click away.
Put it in your favorites, next to beer dot net and naughtymovies dot org, and you’ve got a world wide frat party.
Hope springs eternal.
America, ya gotta love it.