It’s a dream for many small retail investors. Imagine turning a $1000 investment into $1 million or more.
It may seem like a pipe dream, but it happens more often than you think. We recently uncovered five stocks that would have made you a millionaire in 30 years with an investment of just $1000.
Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX): It’s hard to imagine that people once flocked to video stores to rent movies. Netflix disrupted that business model by changing the way we consume content.
Founded in 1997, the company began as a subscription service selling DVDs to customers by mail in prepaid envelopes. By 2007, Netflix launched its streaming service, allowing subscribers to watch content online instantly.
Interestingly, Netflix offered to sell itself to Blockbuster for about $50 million in 2000. Blockbuster declined and later went bankrupt. That said, if you put $1000 in Netflix stock 30 years ago, your investment would now be valued at about $1.2 million. That’s one happy ending Hollywood style.
Axon Enterprise Inc (NASDAQ: AXON): The company, originally known as TASER International, launched the TASER electroshock weapon as its initial product. (For those curious, TASER stands for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle. Its inventor, NASA researcher Jack Cover, wanted to develop a ‘stun gun’ to help police incapacitate someone without killing them. Cover was a fan of a character from sci-fi books called Tom Swift who carried an electric rifle).
In the late 1990s, the company began attaching cameras to TASER devices. The experiment eventually led to the development of body cameras. Axon is now the dominant supplier of body-worn cameras for law enforcement in the U.S.
Another large and growing part of its business is the cloud software that stores and manages digital evidence. The company has also developed AI tools to help police transcribe conversations, organize digital evidence, and draft reports.
In what could be considered equally shocking, if you invested $1000 in Axon Enterprise stock 30 years ago, that stake would now be worth about $1.6 million.
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN): Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezon, the company originally operated out of Bezon’s garage near Seattle, Washington. Amazon.com began as an online bookstore because books were easier to catalog and ship.
It has been reported that Netflix offered to sell itself to Amazon in the late 1990s for about $50 million. Apparently, the two companies were $35 million apart, and Amazon walked away.
The company launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2006, which is now the world’s biggest cloud computing provider with a 31% market share. In 2025, AWS generated just 18% of the parent company’s revenue but 57% of its operating profit.
Investors who put $1000 in Amazon stock 30 years ago could be sitting on a potential profit of around $2.9 million.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA): The semiconductor company, founded in 1993, was originally focused on creating graphics chips for video games. Now NVIDIA is estimated to control more than 80% of the market for AI training and inference GPUs. In fact, most leading AI models, from companies such OpenAI and Anthropic, were trained using NVIDIA GPUs.
NVIDIA nearly ran out of cash in its early days, but the success of its RIVA 128 graphics chip in 1997 saved the company.
Today it is the most valuable publicly traded company in the world with a market cap of about US$5 trillion. Investors who took a leap of faith in this company 30 years ago would have turned $1000 into $4.4 million.
Monster Beverage Corporation (NASDAQ: MNST): Originally known as Hansen Natural Corporation, the company changed its name to Monster Beverage in 2012, following the success of its Monster Energy drink. Monster’s initial success can be attributed to its 16-ounce can, which was nearly twice the size of a Red Bull. Its retail price per fluid ounce, however, is much lower than Red Bull.
The Coca-Cola Company owns about 17% of Monster Beverage and acts as its preferred global distribution partner. Monster earns high returns on invested capital because it outsources much of its manufacturing and leverages Coca-Cola’s giant distribution network.
Early investors, meanwhile, would have realized ‘Monster’ returns, turning a $1000 investment into $4.8 million in 30 years.
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