Alex Dermer

CEO & Co-Founder, Get Engaged Media, now part of SAMY. 40B+ views. Building brands at the speed of culture. Investor. Free Game Friday on LinkedIn.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Fred Smith tells the story that early FedEx was nearly out of money, so he took the last $5,000 to Vegas, won $27,000 at blackjack and kept the planes flying. In fiscal 2025 FedEx brought in $87.9 billion.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Nvidia nearly died in its early years, and Jensen Huang never forgot it. For years he opened staff meetings with "Our company is thirty days from going out of business." Today Nvidia powers the AI boom.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Avalara ran 165 placements across 25 media partners and saw homepage traffic jump 200%. https://t.co/vwCauhUmUQ

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

In 2000 Netflix was burning cash, so its founders flew to Dallas and offered to sell to Blockbuster for $50 million. Marc Randolph says the CEO was struggling not to laugh. Blockbuster passed, and Netflix went on to outlast it.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

For years Marvel licensed its heroes to other studios for a small cut. In 2005 it borrowed $525 million against the film rights to its own characters so it could make the movies itself, which kept control of its heroes and the upside.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Gemini can now edit an entire Google Slides deck from one prompt, so agency late nights on decks just got shorter. https://t.co/ToRYaiSw16

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Howard Schultz left Starbucks to open his own espresso bar and needed investors. He pitched 242 people and only 23 put money in. He opened anyway, then in August 1987 bought Starbucks itself and grew it from 11 stores to over 1,000.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

A Seoul court rejected 88 Tesla owners' FSD refund suit, ruling that FSD never promised driving with no human intervention. https://t.co/PMoHuHttJ0

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

In fiscal 1997 Apple lost $1.045 billion, on top of an $816 million loss the year before, and sales fell 28%. Steve Jobs had just come back to run it. Apple survived and later became one of the most valuable companies on earth.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

In 2008 Airbnb was broke and buried in credit card debt. The founders boxed cereal as Obama O's and Cap'n McCain's, sold it for $40 a box and raised about $30,000. Paul Graham said the stunt is why Y Combinator funded them.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

OpenAI will now honor one shared robots.txt signal for AI training, which gives publishers a single opt-out. https://t.co/zRE3IviBfj

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

In 1886 a pharmacist in Atlanta poured the first glass of a new syrup drink, and in its first year it averaged nine sales a day. Today Coca-Cola says its system serves 2.2 billion drinks every day.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

More than 130 companies were in early access for the new SpaceX Super Intelligence Partner Network. https://t.co/azv66jvjaQ

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

In May 2010 a programmer in Jacksonville offered 10,000 bitcoin on a forum to anyone who'd get him two pizzas. A teenager took the deal and had two Papa John's pies delivered. It became the first famous real-world bitcoin purchase.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Warren Buffett started his investment partnerships with money from family and friends and kept compounding it year after year. By 1962, at age 32, the partnerships held $7.2 million and his own stake was over $1 million.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Build where you're from. Atlanta gave us everything.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

On Sept 10, 2025 Oracle reported huge AI cloud demand and had its best day since 1992. Larry Ellison's fortune jumped by about $89 billion that day, and for a few hours he passed Elon Musk as the richest person alive.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Tourism Northern Ireland got 300%+ more return on ad spend, and user-generated content worked with older travelers too. https://t.co/II0jN3prAk

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

Before Mario, Nintendo was a playing card company looking for its next act. In the 1960s it ran a taxi company and sold instant rice, and neither one lasted. It went back to games, and that bet built a global giant.

[Alex Dermer @AlexDermer]

In 1995 Jeff Bezos asked his parents to fund his online bookstore. He told them there was a 70% chance they'd lose all of it. They wrote the check anyway, and that startup became Amazon.