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by ghein
2884 days ago
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It comes down to this question: are they Viaweb or are they Amazon? If they're Viaweb then they should only do "taxi-like" stuff and should throw away all the automation and other businesses. If they're Amazon then they are in transportation. Eats acts as a flywheel - more pay for drivers, more demand for drivers, more supply of drivers, more loyal customers, more revenue from customers. They should do automation, be involved in trucking, eats, scooters... add more flywheels. What's the right strategy? We'll know in 5 years and all proclaim that it was obvious! |
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Amazon had positive cash flow from early days and has mostly kept positive cash flow ever since (even though they don't report profits, they generated cash). Because of that they've rarely raised debt or equity, and only when they want to on their terms, never when forced to.
Because of that discipline they could work on leveraging into new businesses that had synergies with their current business. But they never tried to do them all at once. Again they were disciplined. At first it was books only. Then they moved into new products bit by bit, and established each as a good business for them before moving into new ones.