My grandfather was a very stubborn man. I was still single digits and my father begged him to put the money into Google, but he chose GatesAir and a few other brands that have died by now. He barely broke even and, despite Google still growing exponentially five years later, he wouldn't reinvest the money and bought lottery tickets instead. A look at investopedia claims that ~$1000 worth of shares in 2004 at the start of Google's IPO would be worth approximately 15 times that in 2014. I'm still a bit sour thinking about the potential $150,000 we could have made from that initial ten grand, but it's very unlikely we would have made that much. Google's stock price rose from $85 to $105 on just the first day alone. Even if we didn't hold out for ten years to get that 15:1 ROI, I wish my grandfather would have listened to my father more. I hope I can have the clarity and the ability to steer my own father in the right direction should we ever find ourselves in a similar situation.