How This Missouri Glassblower Beat Amazon & Became a Billionaire

What happens when you come upon a problem? Hopefully, best case scenario is you find a good solution. For one Missouri glassblower, the problem that challenged him resulted in a quest that led him on a journey where he beat Amazon and became a billionaire.

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I found the interesting story of Jim McKelvey as I was looking at Stacker's list of the richest billionaires in Missouri. I did some research into how Jim made his billions and it's a crazy story.

Jim McKelvey's beginnings in Missouri

Wikipedia says that Jim was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. One of his first jobs was as a glassblowing instructor. It was in the year 2000 that he gave a demonstration at Washington University where he met Doug Auer. A couple years later they would form a glassblowing company.

The Profile says that in 2009, Jim McKelvey was unable to accept an American Express card and he was furious at losing sales because of this.

Why is it so hard to accept credit card payments he asked? That's when he rang his friend Jack Dorsey (yes, the original Twitter guy) and they came up with Square, "that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their smartphones".

That point-of-sale ingenious creation would lead him into a battle with Amazon. Spoiler Alert: Amazon LOST

According to the Stacker article, Jim McKelvey's net worth is approximately $1.5 billion dollars making him one of the top 2000 richest people in the world. And, it all happened because a St. Louis, Missouri glassblower wouldn't accept that the problem in front of him wasn't solvable. So, he fixed it and now he's wealthier than anyone you or I will likely ever know.

Moral of the story? Never underestimate a smart Missouri glassblower with a problem.