Molson Hart

Restauranteur A and B both have profitable restaurants and $1 million in savings. A invested his profits in stocks. B invested his profits in the building that houses his restaurant. A's resto is bankrupt. B's is on sabbatical. Vertical integration as a de-risker.

Plenty of entrepreneurs (my maternal grandfather and great grandfather among them) have made more from the appreciation on the buildings they bought for their businesses than they ever did from the businesses themselves.

My parents owned a mortgaged brownstone around 68th street in Manhattan in the early 80s. It housed their medical devices business. They sold it in the 80s and moved operations to CT. That brownstone sold for like 3x the business 30 years later.

My folks passed on buying the Tribeca loft in which they were living in 1980 for $60k.