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JEFF BEZOS NOW THE WORLDS RICHEST PERSON

GatsbyMag

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1. Does it really matter?
2. How do we actually know he's the richest? Just because CNN/Forbes says?

Regardless, thanks for keeping us up with the news.
 

Rabelo

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tell us the process, we not interested in the news and events
 

MJ DeMarco

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Well he was the richest for a few hours... after AMZN earnings he fell a bit. Oh well, there's always tomorrow to be the richest and ultimately I think he will make it.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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1998: I sell books.
2017: I sell whatever the F*ck I want.
 

BrooklynHustle

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Sean Kaye

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Amazon net income from everything not AWS - ($700m)
AWS net income - $915m

That's a cloud services business that owns a money losing retail and distribution operation.
 
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Digamma

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Amazon net income from everything not AWS - ($700m)
AWS net income - $915m

That's a cloud services business that owns a money losing retail and distribution operation.
Not really. It's a e-commerce business that is eating up markets upon markets, focusing on growth, and turning internal infrastructure needs into client-facing operations that eat up even more markets.

Need a huge internet infrastructure? Make it customer facing (AWS) so it:
a) it becomes better for Amazon: internal solutions are always scrappy, full of "good for now, fix later" that never gets fixed; case in point, I seem to remember (but I don't have a source atm) that Amazon itself is still in the process of bringing the web portal fully to AWS;
b) it stops being a cost center and starts being a huge business of its own;

Same things they are doing with Whole Foods. I have read people criticize the move, showing an utter misunderstanding of Amazon's strategy (which, of course, I can't possibly know - but I can apply what I know instead of my own biases).

They are not simply buying a grocery store chain.

Amazon wants to get into grocery delivery. But grocery is not like what they do now: orders must be fulfilled locally, and inventory spoils fast.
So to make it work from scratch they would have to build a whole infrastructure from producers to consumers, with immense cost and time, and eat tons of losses in spoiled inventory as they figure it out.

So what do they do? They buy Whole Foods, which already has the infrastructure figured out. They can now integrate their plan for grocery delivery into the existing infrastructure, while the infrastructure itself makes a ton of money. It's worth noting that Whole Foods has almost 450 locations spread out enough that it can reach pretty much everywhere, and certainly enough that grocery delivery can be tested thoroughly before expansion. It also specializes in organic stuff, which spoils faster - they must be on point with what they do or they are F*cked.
Again: the potential cost center is instead a huge business in itself, and Amazon takes a big bite out a new market. If the grocery delivery goes well, it will allow Amazon to expand it through Whole Foods, making Whole Foods itself bigger and bigger (that is, Whole Foods as fulfillment center and store can expand more ambitiously than Whole Foods as just a store).

My point is: Jeff Bezos is one of the greatest geniuses of our times. One of the few people I truly admire.
 

Sean Kaye

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Amazon's retail operations have been ongoing for 23 years and have turned a profit in less than ten quarters total if you exclude AWS.

AWS has spun off huge positive cash flow for Amazon.

But if you're looking at their retail business, they are buying marketshare in a very low margin, competitive space.

I think AWS is a brilliant business, I deal with them at a widescale enterprise level every day, but their retail business is not far off a Ponzi Scheme.
 

#nowhere

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I think AWS is a brilliant business, I deal with them at a widescale enterprise level every day, but their retail business is not far off a Ponzi Scheme.

I haven't seen it this way. Until now...

Food for thought.
 
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cutthroughstatic

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wow. he's an overnight success!
 

MJ DeMarco

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It's worth noting that Whole Foods has almost 450 locations spread out

Also interesting to note: Whole Foods are in locations where the demographics are higher income, affluent and upper middle class, the same type of demographic that can afford to pay a premium for home grocery delivery.
 
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Sequential

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I want to know why Amazon has not been hit with Monopoly charges like Microsoft was.

Microsoft - market monopoly on operating systems... gets fined a lot of money.

Amazon - market monopoly on virtually everything now, well known for forcing competitors out of markets including people who sell on amazon...no fines.

Can someone who knows law please explain?
 

ApparentHorizon

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I want to know why Amazon has not been hit with Monopoly charges like Microsoft was.

Microsoft - market monopoly on operating systems... gets fined a lot of money.

Amazon - market monopoly on virtually everything now, well known for forcing competitors out of markets including people who sell on amazon...no fines.

Can someone who knows law please explain?

40% market share is a monopoly?
 

B_Mac

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I want to know why Amazon has not been hit with Monopoly charges like Microsoft was.

Microsoft - market monopoly on operating systems... gets fined a lot of money.

Amazon - market monopoly on virtually everything now, well known for forcing competitors out of markets including people who sell on amazon...no fines.

Can someone who knows law please explain?

I am not a lawyer or law expert, but I understood Microsoft to be a monopoly because it wouldn't license Windows to any computer distributor unless it agreed not to use any other browser (Netscape, I think). So it used its power to force other companies to use its product, from which it would profit.

Amazon hasn't reached that point (yet). Amazon doesn't make money every time Wal-Mart or Target sales something, or every time UPS delivers something, or every time a retailer who uses AWS makes a sale.
 

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