[valuearb]

It's nothing like amazon.

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.