For all the talk of “serial entrepreneurs,” most of them are, in fact, one-trick ponies. It’s exceptionally rare that anyone builds successful businesses in two entirely unrelated fields. Jeff Bezos did it with retail and cloud computing, while Elon Musk has succeeded in both the automotive and space industries. The late Wayne Huizenga founded three major homeruns in Waste Management, Blockbuster Video, and Autozone.
In terms of annualized returns, most CEOs aren’t terribly impressive, with a few notable exceptions. Bezos has gifted investors with a 38 percent CAGR since Amazon went public in 1997. Legendary Apple CEO Steve Jobs presided over a stock price CAGR of approximately 36 percent between 1997 and 2011. Warren Buffett, widely credited as the greatest investor ever, generated annual returns for investors in excess of 20 percent between 1965 and 2011.
Then there’s Warren Kanders, whose performance belongs in a league of its own.