[PaulHoule]

Some of these people might never have been as good as people think.

I wonder if in Blue Origin we are seeing the real Jeff Bezos, and that Amazon post-2003 or so has succeeded in spite of, not because of Jeff Bezos. That is, AMZN was in the right place at the right time, got good systems in place at the beginning, and that AWS might have been the only strategic pivot that mattered. (E.g. Prime Video makes headlines because the media is the #1 favorite topic of the media, not because it changes anything)

[narmiouh]

Do you believe Amazon would have succeeded as it has with Elon Musk at its helm? Everyone has different qualities and strengths... Amazon's success(in consumer goods) is merely a reflection of our society as to how it wants to live and what its priorities are and Jeff Bezos has found a way to capitalize it.

[PaulHoule]

Elon musk’s greatest weakness that I see is that his behavior (e.g. his bullshit tweets about Bitcoin) drives women up the wall which would not be healthy for a consumer-oriented retailer. (He’s the opposite of, say, Benjamin Disreali.)

Musk’s strength, when it comes to SpaceX, is that he takes it absolutely seriously. (Bezos took AMZN seriously, but Blue Origin's main business seems to be suing the government.)

The alternate scenario I see is that Bezos died in 2005 or 2010, they did a CEO search was successful, and the firm did OK without him. Or perhaps AMZN had such a great flywheel that it would have taken legendarily stupendous incompetence to stop it. (E.g. opening lots of brick and mortar stores)

[imranhou]

Then why isn't there a lot of serious competition to Amazon? Where are these hypothentical CEO's who would have replaced a dead Bezos, why aren't they running walmarts/targets/new startups of this world? I am not actually a fan of the guy, but I like to credit where it is due.

[PaulHoule]

I said it.

AMZN has a flywheel. That flywheel is going to keep turning despite what anyone does.

Brick and motor stores have a tendency to fixate on a profile of an imaginary consumer that is bizzare to say the least.

The Staples shopper loves junk hardware from VTech (especially if it only lasts three weeks) and wouldn't even think of buying quality Plantronics hardware. Staples shoppers want a choice of 20 different kinds of glossy inkjet paper and would never buy a coated photo/presentation matte (hint: they are the same thing, art reproductions look great on photo matte)

What about the imaginary Target shopper who an insatiable appetite for chi-chi frozen foods, graphic T-shirt, and shoes and bras that don't fit?

Amazon avoided those fates and also the fate of being an advertising-dependent business that started to believe the stories it tells. (Dan Boorstein, in 1962, said that public relations experts didn't fall for the images they make, but we've had a long time for the culture to degrade. I'm certain that "ad prices are too damn high" because they are bid up by people who get the jollies from hearing their name on the radio.)

[imranhou]

I don't disagree with some of the specific points, and to be clear success of Amazon is not all attributed to one individual. I'm sure one can agree that success at this scale is a combination of right strategy, lucky timing.

But I also believe in butterfly effect, the levers a CEO holds on a company have 1000X multiplier effect than a normal employee, and any change of leader means an Amazon with a market cap of 3T vs 3B. Thats is not to say a 3B company doesn't have a flywheel and won't make consistent profit. I look at the likes of eBay, Newegg all were non B&M and still couldn't grow to anywhere near the size.

In the end, it could have been Joe Pizza that was at the helm of Amazon that succeeded to 3T market cap, same argument can be made that replacing Joe Pizza wouldn't have lead to the similar result. All the pieces (luck, personalities, vision, skills etc...), of the puzzle have to match just right for such a large scale success.