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The $18,000 Gamble: How Winning Jet.com's Contest in 2015 Led to a Fortune
In this episode of Depends on the Context, I revisit the extraordinary story of Eric Martin, who spent $18,000 of his own money in 2015 trying to win a referral contest for Jet.com, an online retailer that hadn't even launched yet. He won 100,000 stock options. Just 18 months later, Walmart acquired Jet.com for $3.3 billion.
I've loved this story for years, so I recently contacted Eric to find out what happened afterward. He shared details about those three weeks, his conversations with Jet founder Marc Lore, and how the experience changed his life.
Drawing on original reporting and my own…
The skinny
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