The Amazon Era: No Profits, No Problem
There is a new calculus in corporate boardrooms. Profits are so yesterday. Now it’s all about vision and great storytelling.
Blame Amazon.com. The online behemoth cracked the code. Despite posting just a handful of profitable quarters in its two-decade history, it’s the fourth-largest public company at almost $470 billion in market capitalization. Now, its copycats are changing the game.
NYU business professor Scott Galloway argues that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has created a playing field so tilted in his company’s favor others really don’t stand a chance.
“Bezos’ ability to paint an extraordinary vision (i.e., ‘Earth’s Biggest Store’) and register steady progress against that vision is rewarded with the cheapest capital in the history of business,” says Galloway. “And… Cheap. Capital. Is. Awesome.”
That steady flow of cheap capital allows Amazon to do a bunch of extraordinary things that would doom most companies. It started a cloud-computing business, a movie studio and a consumer electronics business. It started an ocean shipping company and an airline. It’s even now making mundane stuff like batteries and skinny jeans.
Bezos recently told shareholders that the goal is to “experiment patiently, accept failures, plant seeds, protect saplings, and double down when you see customer delight.”
It’s working. When Amazon does record a profit from time to time, investors wonder why it’s not plowing that money back into the business — as opposed to giving it to shareholders.
Government subsidies from net neutrality = I’M Rich!
Amazons stock value is 247X greater then their annual revenue. No other company can even remotely come close to that absurdity
finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/cash-flow?p=AMZN
h/t Armed Snowflake