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Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

blog.samgerstenzang.com

51–60 of 86 posts

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#51

I will make the bold claim that within 10 years amazon will fall apart at the seams like a cheap suit in a storm. You cannot run a non profit forever no matter how large your market share is or how obsessed you are about customers. The culture (from what we can glean from the excerpts of the new book on Bezo's) is also toxic and is unlikely to produce an enduring successful company. Senior execs can't pass gas withou…

They are hardly a non-profit. He is maybe the most aggressive CEO in the US right now for putting money back into the company.

Amazon's cash flow is insane, if they put the brakes on reinvestment right now, they would be making billions and billions per quarter.

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#52
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about how much you hear about Yahoo in 2013. Think about how much you heard about Yahoo in 2011.

Maybe I haven't been reading much, but what else has Yahoo done recently besides bring in Mayer and do a website redesign?

They've done a lot of acquisitions. I think the biggest was Tumblr. Not much to show from the acquisitions yet, but based on the fact that there has been acquisitions, Googlers moving to Yahoo, etcetera, I think there's a pretty good chance they're working on some things that will eventually pay off.

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#53
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solves easy problems at large scale I would love to see you in an Amazon interview. 80% of the interviewed melt down in the middle of it because they can't solve a problem that is 10 orders of magnitude easier than the problems they would be tackling on the job.

Well, I was going to say something similar, but I really just think he means Amazon's problems are easy compared to googles. That being the point, I don't think his phrasing is worth taking issue over.

I'd say close to nothing on the AWS side or the retail website side of things are "easy" problems to design and maintain every day.

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#54

Larry-Sergey & Google is far more feature proof company Amazon - Solves easy problems at large scale Google - Solves complex problems at large scale

Google literally has one product that keeps nearly all of their lights on.

They're far more vulnerable than most people think.

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#55

I will make the bold claim that within 10 years amazon will fall apart at the seams like a cheap suit in a storm. You cannot run a non profit forever no matter how large your market share is or how obsessed you are about customers. The culture (from what we can glean from the excerpts of the new book on Bezo's) is also toxic and is unlikely to produce an enduring successful company. Senior execs can't pass gas withou…

That's not a bold claim...hundreds of pundits have said exactly the same thing. Not only do you not have a reputation to maintain, but you have chosen a completely conspicuous comment section to make the claim, ensuring that nobody cares enough to track down your comment 10 years from now.

Funnily enough, there is one Exec whose 40 year strategy is almost identical despite radically different markets and tactics...namely the "reinvest until you are blue in the face" strategy. You may have heard of him, his name is Warren Buffet. Bezos has the advantage that with his company, he doesn't have to realize any profits.

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#56
post #51

I will make the bold claim that within 10 years amazon will fall apart at the seams like a cheap suit in a storm. You cannot run a non profit forever no matter how large your market share is or how obsessed you are about customers. The culture (from what we can glean from the excerpts of the new book on Bezo's) is also toxic and is unlikely to produce an enduring successful company. Senior execs can't pass gas withou…

They are hardly a non-profit. He is maybe the most aggressive CEO in the US right now for putting money back into the company. Amazon's cash flow is insane, if they put the brakes on reinvestment right now, they would be making billions and billions per quarter.

1. I'm not so sure about that. According to the most recent financial statement[1], AMZN hasn't generated much in the way of net cash from operations over the past 12 months. Worse yet, they're spending an amount in excess of that on investments (some of which is really capitalized operating expense, like internal software development, that companies like MSFT expense directly). In fact, for the 12 months ended 6/30/2013, the only reason ending cash was greater than beginning cash was because they undertook financing transactions (selling stock, issuing debt, etc.) See the section that discusses "free cash flow," which is in itself a non-GAAP measure, as it omits non-avoidable expenses like operating lease payments, principal repayments on debt, etc. In other words, even that measure doesn't really represent distributable cash.

2. Unlike SaaS companies that sign multi-year contracts as their main source of revenue, the vast majority of Amazon's revenue is products, for which revenue is recognized almost immediately. Over time, then, the cash the company collects should roughly correspond to its GAAP income, unless services that are paid up-front for consumption over time increase as a % of its revenue (e.g., reserved instances, annual subscription fees, etc). In other words, it is unlikely to profitlessly generate cash; the two should rise or fall together.

3. Amazon is a fearsome competitor. But ORCL makes vastly more money. In fact, when Walmart's revenues were the size Amazon's are today (in the early 80s, roughly, adjusting for inflation), it was far more profitable then than Amazon is today--despite having to operate stores and truck fleets.

[1] http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/00011931251...

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#57
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point. There is another category of bad owners too, state owned. I'd almost prefer that to the square metre of adverts per story that the local rag produces though.

State controlled media is certainly bad, but that is not implied by state ownership. In my experience state owned organisations provide better quality journalism than their commercial counterparts, and the gap is widening as commercial media race each other to the bottom.

Perhaps better than mainstream, ad-supported commercial counter, but that's hardly the gold standard. "Not as terrible as those who go whoring for ad dollars" isn't a ringing endorsement.

State-funded is not terribly far off, either: if funding depends to any real degree on the political climate, then the conflicts are unavoidable.

The line between state-owned and state-controlled is incredibly thin, and is only one catastrophe away from being wiped out.

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#58
post #21
post #4

Surprisingly, no mention of Washington Post. That keeps him firmly up there in the zone of evil. > Congratulations, sir The tone seems like that of a Bozo fanboy.

Please read the post with a heavy dose of sarcasm mixed with admiration :) I'd very much like to see formidable challengers arise. And I actually wrote this post a week before Bezos bought the WaPo, although I think it only underscores the point.

Before you write anything again on Bozo or Amazon, please read http://stallman.org/amazon. If you have already read it, fine.

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#59
post #8

Marissa Mayer's going to be on this list shortly.

She really isn't. Her efforts at Google, especially as time went on, were increasingly mediocre, and at Yahoo she's proven to be little different.

What she has going in her favor is that Yahoo was mismanaged to an utterly stunning degree before her time. I don't doubt that a more sensible approach is going to do net-good things for them.

But there's just no way she's going to be included in the same chapter of history as the other names given.

Re: Who’s afraid of Jeff Bezos?

#60
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I haven't been reading much, but what else has Yahoo done recently besides bring in Mayer and do a website redesign?

They've done a lot of acquisitions. I think the biggest was Tumblr. Not much to show from the acquisitions yet, but based on the fact that there has been acquisitions, Googlers moving to Yahoo, etcetera, I think there's a pretty good chance they're working on some things that will eventually pay off.

Yahoo was mismanaged to an utterly stunning degree before her time, so I don't doubt that a more sensible approach is going to do net-good things for them.
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