Value Chain Capture
The Lewis & Clark Expedition left St. Louis and headed up the Missouri River. They had entered undocumented lands. After two weeks of travel, someone called out "Prorogue ahead!" Three hunters came down the river with $100 worth of pelts and furs. This is the equivalent of $22,000 today. These men risked a lot to venture that far up the river into Indian country to collect these furs. It's not the men that took the hard work that profited the most though. They took the greatest risks and got the least reward. When the furs got to New York they would be worth 10x what they had made. When they got to China they'd be 10x more valuable than what someone would pay in New York. After it's all said and done these furs were worth more than $2,000,000 today, but the hunters that risked their lives saw only a fraction of that.