Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

online.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 111 posts

Re: Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

#51

Post by srdev »

wisty wrote: post #50
ajtaylor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For years I though Bezos was crazy and that Amazon could never, ever repay all the billions it had raised/spent. I was so, so wrong... I wouldn't bet against Bezos.

From all I've heard, Bezos is more "crazy like a fox" than Jobs was. There's a lot to hate about Amazon. Apparently, it's a totally caustic work environment, that's only making money because Bezos is such a brilliant strategist. Like A/B testing everything, before it was popular. Like telling everyone they need web APIs for everything they do, and will be fired if they use non-web APIs to other team's apps. Way to sh…

As with most big companies, whether its a caustic environment or not really depends on which team you're working for. The culture instilled by your manager or manager's manager is more powerful than the corporate culture as a whole.

Re: Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

#53

Post by larrik »

kijin wrote: post #43

> Amazon also said it ended the third quarter with 51,300 employees, up from 31,200 in the same quarter last year. Amazon creates 20,000 jobs, and Wall Street responds with a 12% drop in stock price.

And they are still hiring! They've been bombarding me with emails to interview with them, for some reason.

Re: Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

#54

Post by cma »

usaar333 wrote: post #45
beedogs wrote: post #26

God, investors are idiotic. Amazon spends money to upgrade its infrastructure, stock price plunges 12 percent . Rational!

In all fairness, they did miss on revenue as well (albeit not by much). Given how highly valued Amazon is (something like 5x Walmart on a price/revs basis), exceeding estimates is expected. That's not to say they aren't an amazing company, but their valuation is extremely high.

>exceeding estimates is expected

If this is a cold hard face, wouldn't someone factor that in when making the "estimate" or does "estimate" now have a new meaning?

Re: Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

#56

Post by ilamont »

brc wrote: post #42
chugger wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the $50 Amazon is losing per Kindle Fire sold?

A tried and true strategy. That has worked for (in no particular order) : ATM's, Printers, Razors, Mobile Phones, Gaming Platforms and probably even cars in some cases. If Sony had cottoned onto this strategy, Beta would have been the worldwide video standard and they would have been paid back massively in royalties. Shifting hardware at a loss to lock in consumers is the oldest trick in the book. Nowhere is it more…

It amazes me that they didn't do this for the PS3. Many tablet are making the same mistakes today.

Re: Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

#57

Post by usaar333 »

cma wrote: post #54
usaar333 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness, they did miss on revenue as well (albeit not by much). Given how highly valued Amazon is (something like 5x Walmart on a price/revs basis), exceeding estimates is expected. That's not to say they aren't an amazing company, but their valuation is extremely high.

>exceeding estimates is expected If this is a cold hard face, wouldn't someone factor that in when making the "estimate" or does "estimate" now have a new meaning?

analyst estimates differ from the effective market estimate

Re: Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

#58

Post by chugger »

brc wrote: post #42
chugger wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the $50 Amazon is losing per Kindle Fire sold?

A tried and true strategy. That has worked for (in no particular order) : ATM's, Printers, Razors, Mobile Phones, Gaming Platforms and probably even cars in some cases. If Sony had cottoned onto this strategy, Beta would have been the worldwide video standard and they would have been paid back massively in royalties. Shifting hardware at a loss to lock in consumers is the oldest trick in the book. Nowhere is it more…

Its a tried and true strategy if there wasnt a better strategy. Amazon doesnt need to create their own hardware. They are doing just fine selling Ebooks via their iPad and android apps. Low overhead, more profit. Selling their own hardware does not provide any value add to the customers, all it does it reduce their margins and profit. People already buy ebooks via their apps.

People are talking like this is a good move by bezos. It's not.

Re: Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

#59

Post by firefoxman1 »

chugger wrote: post #35
nobody3141 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy moves like "heavy spending on warehouses, data centers and digital-content offerings" An online store buying stock and building infrastructure !!!!! Crazy , they should be borrowing money and paying themselves bonuses before going bust - that's what Wall St wants

How about the $50 Amazon is losing per Kindle Fire sold?

Yeah, how about losing money on every book sold back when they started? It seemed to work for them.

Re: Amazon's Profit Plunges 73%

#60

Post by Hitchhiker »

brc wrote: post #42
chugger wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the $50 Amazon is losing per Kindle Fire sold?

A tried and true strategy. That has worked for (in no particular order) : ATM's, Printers, Razors, Mobile Phones, Gaming Platforms and probably even cars in some cases. If Sony had cottoned onto this strategy, Beta would have been the worldwide video standard and they would have been paid back massively in royalties. Shifting hardware at a loss to lock in consumers is the oldest trick in the book. Nowhere is it more…

Totally agreed.

"Well, since Moore's law makes computation really cheap, let's just give away the computation, but keep the data."[1]

[1] - http://edge.org/conversation/the-local-global-flip

Post reply on HN