111–120 of 141 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i'm a big fan of Bezos, honestly, but to say that pricing your products in such a way as to make >$100 billion in cash is a "mistake"... that's just crazy talk.
Meanwhile, the iPhone has slowly but steadily been losing mindshare to its amazing competition.
Out of all the articles I have read on the issue, this one most accurately sums up the views and opinions of the upper half of the organization. Nobody is scared. Nobody is feeling defensive. Nobody thinks the business as a whole is on the wrong path (although there are definitely a few ventures that some feel are in the wrong). I don't have the most broad corporate employment history, but as far as it extends, I've…
This is a dangerous narrative that links the founder to the company in the same way that Apple is forever linked to Steve Jobs.
Out of all the articles I have read on the issue, this one most accurately sums up the views and opinions of the upper half of the organization. Nobody is scared. Nobody is feeling defensive. Nobody thinks the business as a whole is on the wrong path (although there are definitely a few ventures that some feel are in the wrong). I don't have the most broad corporate employment history, but as far as it extends, I've…
Of course they're not scared, they have a nice stock price and seemingly no need to justify it.
With Amazon, I actually daydream about the stock taking a nose dive right before I get my next compensation offer. That way I get more stock. I have never had to worry about the long term future value of the company, so a dip is an arbitrage opportunity, as opposed to a risk (like Zynga).
Amazon only has around 10 more years before 3d printing starts to kill retail. Beware.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i'm a big fan of Bezos, honestly, but to say that pricing your products in such a way as to make >$100 billion in cash is a "mistake"... that's just crazy talk.
In the short term. Bezos point is that by pricing everything this way, proposing to compete with Amazon is crazy talk for most people: Their margins are razor thin, so you need to be able to beat them consistently on cost to have a chance of surviving, and beating them on cost will requires economies of scale that are impossible for a lot of people. Apple on the other hand, is marketing high end products with ridicul…
Perhaps both strategies will end up working, but you can't say apples strategy is a failure. It is clearly not, even if they never sell another phone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the short term. Bezos point is that by pricing everything this way, proposing to compete with Amazon is crazy talk for most people: Their margins are razor thin, so you need to be able to beat them consistently on cost to have a chance of surviving, and beating them on cost will requires economies of scale that are impossible for a lot of people. Apple on the other hand, is marketing high end products with ridicul…
That's fine, but apple makes more profit every quarter than amazon has ever made I think. They have made several hundred billion dollars over the last few years. Who knows if amazon ever gets to flip the switch. Maybe they do, but even then apple will have a several hundred billion dollar head start. Perhaps both strategies will end up working, but you can't say apples strategy is a failure. It is clearly not, even i…
There are some issues with this explanation. The main issue is that the rules of accounting have a very good provision to take into account investing into the future. It is called capitalization. Thus, if a company spends money to build or acquire a new asset, it is called capital spending and it is not subtracted from the profits. Thus, for example, if a company had a million dollars of profit and decided to spend t…
That's all true, but Amazon is free cash flow positive. So it's not like they're making huge "losses" after deducting capex.
Strangly, this was the business model of cable companies for the longest time. They never turned a profit. When they expanded, they could use the increased income stream to go deeper into debt. The profits and extra capital went into more expansion. Eventually, they ran out of room to expand, and where are they now? Someday, Amazon will need to face the brutal reality of profit.
Interesting that the other replies to your question are so assured of the dominance of the cable companies. In other words, the perfect industry to disrupt. Before Apple came along, Nokia, RIM and Windows Mobile were poised to rule the mobile world, and could not imagine being relegated to niche marketshare in merely 7 years…
