[vasilipupkin]

Right. It is not a Ponzi scheme. Investors price stocks based on the expected future cashflows. And those expected cashflows by the very definition reflect the non-zero probability of failure. Now, investors as a whole may overvalue or undervalue those cashflows - but this has nothing to do with a Ponzi scheme

[codex]

It is like a Ponzi scheme in that it requires continuous expansion to maintain. Switching metaphors, it's also like a Catch-22: Amazon is successful precisely because it makes no profit. How, then, do you value future cash flows? Any profit it does make will hamper future flows. Furthermore, Bezos is far too into empire building to stop and take profits. His ego and fame is bound up into the size of his company, not how profitable it is, so the expectation of profit should be near zero.