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Amazon

includes Amazon Web Services, Amazon Alexa, Amazon Echo, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Prime, Amazon Bedrock, Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Pharmacy, Amazon Publishing and 13 more

198 statements across 142 episodes · 79 bullish · 59 bearish · 129 people on the record · first statement Jan 13, 2015 by Guy Kawasaki · said 1,778 times in 545 episodes since 2015 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (531), Rory O'Driscoll (35), Jason Lemkin (27), Rebecca Kaden (20), Chris Degnan (18), TJ Parker (17), David Cahn (16), Jamie Siminoff (13)

tap a year for its mentions
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04080201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
002.540580201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 185 mentions in 67 episodes 3 per episode
2025 290 mentions in 77 episodes 4 per episode
2024 186 mentions in 59 episodes 3 per episode
2023 270 mentions in 61 episodes 4 per episode
2022 113 mentions in 46 episodes 2 per episode
2021 100 mentions in 34 episodes 3 per episode
2020 89 mentions in 32 episodes 3 per episode
2019 74 mentions in 30 episodes 2 per episode
2018 217 mentions in 48 episodes 5 per episode
2017 114 mentions in 36 episodes 3 per episode
2016 119 mentions in 46 episodes 3 per episode
2015 21 mentions in 9 episodes 2 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Amazon, oldest first

Jan 13, 2015 bullish
Opinion
Guy Kawasaki calls Amazon an operational killing machine and endorses buying stock
“Because Amazon is a killing machine, and I use it as a, as someplace I buy from. Also, I publish through as a self-publisher, and I resell through using a traditional publisher, so I know how freaking awesome that company is.”
Guy Kawasaki Jan 13, 2015 ▶ 15:08 20 VC 001: Guy Kawasaki of Apple, Motorola and AllTop.com
Jan 18, 2015 neutral
Insight
Hornik: Big tech giants are slowly morphing into the same company
“I think that if you look at what Amazon is doing, what Google is doing, what Facebook is doing, they all are slowly but surely, and in many ways Apple, they're all slowly but surely morphing into the same company.”
David Hornik Jan 18, 2015 ▶ 21:15 20 VC 004: David Hornik on the Magic of Stanford and Startups
Feb 2, 2015 bullish
Opinion
Floyd in 2015: Amazon is a long-term buy due to undervalued AWS
“Oh, bye. Long term, it's going to be around for a very long time, and I think, I feel like the whole cloud business is completely under undervalued.”
Joe Floyd Feb 2, 2015 ▶ 13:26 20 VC 009: Red Flags, Saas and becoming a VC with Joe Floyd
Jul 13, 2015 neutral
Assertion Supported
Amazon's Third-Party Marketplace Take Rate Is Approximately 15 Percent
“You know, I think Amazon's take rate for their marketplace is something like 15%.”
Jonathan Libov Jul 13, 2015 ▶ 28:11 20 VC 053: Inside Union Square Ventures with Jonathan Libov @ Union Square Ventures
Jul 15, 2015 bearish
Insight
Independent Music Streaming Services Are Unviable Because Digital Music Is Commoditized
“I think, unfortunately, it's not a good time To be a independent provider of digital music, you know, to be a music service, because as I said, they're largely commoditized. Almost no one can make money in them. None of them are profitable. So the, you know, t…”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 16:26 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Jul 31, 2015
Assertion Supported
Matt Williams: Most acquired founders leave within three years; he stayed twelve
“Very few founders ever kind of last longer than two or three years at most startups that get, then get acquired. I, you know, I think there's, there are very few, I happen to be one of the rare, you know, kind of rare ones that I was at Amazon for about 12 yea…”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 13:21 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
Jul 31, 2015
Assertion Supported
Matt Williams: LiveBid delivered a 10x return when acquired by Amazon
“I started a company called LiveBid that was founded back in 96 and sold to Amazon in 99 for about a 10 X return to investors”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 2:49 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
Jul 31, 2015
Assertion Partly supported
LiveBid amassed $100M in inventory before acquisition interest from Amazon and eBay
“And in about a year we're able to amass close to a hundred million dollars in inventory that was, you know, being offered through auction through our website, which at the time was quite a bit, and we then had, had interest from eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon for acq…”
Matt Williams Jul 31, 2015 ▶ 4:52 FF 006: Acquired by Amazon, CEO @ Digg, EIR @ a16z and now Founder @ Pro.com with Matt Williams
Oct 5, 2015 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kamal Ravikant: My self-published book outsells most New York Times bestsellers
“That shit, that's what happened with me, and my book outsells most New York Times bestsellers, and it's only on Amazon, right?”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 5, 2015 ▶ 13:38 20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC'
Dec 9, 2015 bearish
Opinion
Teten: Sell Amazon Stock Due to Weak Retail Pricing Power
“I would probably sell On the grounds that, ah, it's not clear to me if when they eventually turn on the monetization spigot, ah, it will be impossible for other people to compete with them. In other words, the whole theory of Amazon, not unlike a lot of early-…”
David Teten Dec 9, 2015 ▶ 21:00 20 VC 095: How VCs Find Startups and How To Add Value Once Invested with David Teten @ ff Venture Capital
Apr 8, 2016
Opinion
Biyani: Uber and Amazon have far weaker network effects than Facebook
“Uber certainly has some, and Amazon has some, but they're not nearly as strong as the network effects of, say, a Facebook.”
Gagan Biyani Apr 8, 2016 ▶ 7:52 20VC: Sprig's Gagan Biyani on The 3 Principles Of Fundraising and Building The World's Largest Restaurant
May 6, 2016 negative
Opinion
Morton: Amazon has struggled in emotional commerce due to distinct rules
“Amazon being the undisputed heavyweights of commodity commerce, I think haven't made as much headway into emotional commerce as you might expect, because it's a different set of rules.”
Chris Morton May 6, 2016 ▶ 12:57 20VC: Why VC Is The Perfect Preparation For Founding A Startup & Changing The World Of Online Fashion with Chris Morton, Co-Founder & CEO @ Lyst
Jul 13, 2016 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Big Tech Dominance Makes Creating New Consumer Web Unicorns Difficult
“We're now in a world where, you know, we're seeing really dominant market power, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, you know, creating a new set of unicorns in the face of that market power is going to be very difficult, certainly in the consumer-facing web serv…”
Brad Burnham Jul 13, 2016 ▶ 14:04 20VC: USV's Brad Burnham on Co-Founding USV with Fred Wilson, What They Look For In Potential Partners & Whether We Are Entering a Period of Consolidation or Expansion
Jul 29, 2016 bearish
Insight
Amazon is structurally ineffective for niche product discovery
“Amazon's actually really bad for that, especially for discovering new products, because Amazon services, you know, the best hairbrush, not the best hairbrush for Shetland ponies, right?”
Amir Elguizy Jul 29, 2016 ▶ 7:10 20VC: Why People Should Never Be Surprised If Fired, Subscription E-Commerce Is Hot & People Never Give True and Direct Feedback with Amir Elaguizy, Co-Founder @ Cratejoy
Jul 29, 2016 negative
Insight
Amazon margin compression prevents e-commerce merchants from building distinct brands
“Marketplaces like Amazon and just increased competition on the internet in general are driving margins lower for e-commerce merchants. They're making it harder to differentiate or build a real brand because, I mean, I don't even know who I buy my things from a…”
Amir Elguizy Jul 29, 2016 ▶ 5:28 20VC: Why People Should Never Be Surprised If Fired, Subscription E-Commerce Is Hot & People Never Give True and Direct Feedback with Amir Elaguizy, Co-Founder @ Cratejoy
Aug 1, 2016
Assertion Supported
Amazon's Twitch Acquisition Exceeded $1 Billion After Employee Retention Packages
“We ended up selling to Twitch To Amazon for nine or seventy million dollars. Does that annoy you that it's not a billion? I think they specifically did that, but you know, it's after retention, it was over a billion”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 6:48 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Aug 10, 2016
Insight
Venrock screens consumer startups against Amazon Basics commoditization risk
“One of the areas of that investment thesis is will Amazon Amazon you by effectively commoditizing the category by launching an Amazon basics or, you know, an Amazon branded commodity version.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 12:25 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Aug 10, 2016 bearish
Insight
Low margins and Amazon competition make giant e-commerce exits rare
“A lot of investors don't love e-commerce for a number of reasons. It's, it tends, it can be a low margin business. It tends to have low multiples. Amazon is ever present and can compete with you in many, many categories on price and convenience, so it's pretty…”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 5:44 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Aug 19, 2016 positive
Disclosure
Berberian: Sphero expanded direct-to-consumer sales from 10% to 25%
“We started off maybe having 10%, you know, direct to consumer and that's, I'd consider sites like Amazon, More direct to consumer than a, you know, brick and mortar traditional retail. That's now shift to closer to 25% in the last couple of years, and last yea…”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 10:40 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Aug 24, 2016 bullish
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Chad Byers Predicts Facebook or Amazon Will Hit $1 Trillion First
“So I think it's Facebook. You know, my second answer, although this is kind of cheating, would probably be Amazon. So Facebook or Amazon, I don't think it's Apple. I don't think it's Google. I think it's going to be one of those two.”
Chad Byers Aug 24, 2016 ▶ 21:25 20VC: Why Raising A Fund Is Like Raising A $25m Seed Round with No Product & Why Not All LP Money Is Equal with Chad Byers, General Partner @ Susa Ventures
Sep 5, 2016 bullish
Prediction Held up
Ben Lerer: Legacy retail and media will heavily acquire DTC startups
“The last few weeks in retail, I mean, just look at the jet and dollar shave acquisitions. You're seeing, these are the first dominoes in what will be a bunch of dominoes falling. I believe in consolidation where the traditional guys in retail, the traditional …”
Ben Lerer Sep 5, 2016 ▶ 19:22 20VC: Lerer Hippeau's Ben Lerer on 'Investing With Imagination', Strategies To Avoid Fomo & Develop Pattern Recognition As An Investor and Why We Have Seen The Rise of Direct To Consumer Business & Will This Continue With Further M&A
Oct 7, 2016 negative
Insight
SMBs cannot use consumer platforms like Amazon for custom procurement
“Small businesses are kind of stuck in this awkward no man's land where they can't really go to Amazon or eBay or use consumer sites like that. Like say me and you could, because they're usually buying pretty custom things. They're buying custom equipment, they…”
Karthik Sridharan Oct 7, 2016 ▶ 4:36 20VC: What Makes A Great marketplace Founder, The Key Metrics Marketplace Success Is Centred On & 3 Ways To Prove To Investors You Are A Domain Expert with Karthik Sridharan, Founder & CEO @ Kinnek
Oct 31, 2016 positive
What-if
Hamid: VCs Return More by Holding Winners for Decades
“And in many cases, you don't even want to distribute in those eight years because think about how much you would have made if you would have stayed in, in, in Amazon or Facebook or Google over the course of time it probably would have been much better for thos…”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 31, 2016 ▶ 8:14 20VC: Social Capital's Mamoon Hamid on Disrupting The Venture Model & Advancing Humanity By Solving The World's Toughest Problems
Jan 16, 2017 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Chang: Data-poor AI startups will be acqui-hired by major tech incumbents
“If startups can't train on massive proprietary data sets, then they'll never get that advantage on their algorithms. And then they're really targeted for, you know, acqui-hire by Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, et cetera.”
Tim Chang Jan 16, 2017 ▶ 13:55 20VC: Why We Will See A Big Series B Crunch? Why Proprietary Data Pools & AI Talent Will Be The New Limited Natural Resources? Why Now Is The Closest Thing To A New Normal with Tim Chang, Managing Director @ Mayfield Fund
Feb 10, 2017 negative
Opinion
Gautam Gupta: Most large CPG companies lack a real e-commerce strategy
“Most of the large CPG companies Don't really have an e-commerce strategy. Their e-commerce strategy is, yeah, we'll sell some stuff on Amazon. I mean, that's not really a strategy, right?”
Gautam Gupta Feb 10, 2017 ▶ 24:07 20VC: How Startups & VCs Can Build Relationships with Potential Corporate Acquirers? The Challenge Of Operating Both A B2B & B2C Business Model & Why Fundraising Is The One Element Founders Cannot Control with Gautam Gupta, Founder & CEO @ NatureBox
Mar 3, 2017 positive
Disclosure
Netflix and Amazon employees adopted x.ai without any sales contact.
“On the thousands and thousands of people that have adopted the single-use case version of Amy, I never talked to the New York Times, or Netflix, or Amazon, or Salesforce, but those companies, they just have employees in pain, and since there's no integration, …”
Dennis Mortensen Mar 3, 2017 ▶ 17:50 20VC: Why Product Market Fit Is Like Porn, How The Entrance of Facebook and Google Into Enterprise Software Effects Traditional Enterprise Companies & The Future Pricing Model For The Enterprise with Dennis Mortensen, Founder @ X.ai
Mar 13, 2017 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Grady: Big Tech will be the biggest beneficiary of the next platform shift
“In the next platform shift, that will also be true. The biggest beneficiary is likely to be Google or Facebook or Apple or Amazon.”
Pat Grady Mar 13, 2017 ▶ 14:16 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Pat Grady on Why Data Is The New Oil, Why We Will See The Return of The Apprenticeship Model in VC & The Defining Characteristics of The Next Generation of Great Software
May 12, 2017 neutral
Assertion Contradicted
Finkelstein: Early e-commerce forced a choice between million-dollar software and marketplaces
“And at the time in 2004, 2005, there really were two ways to sell a product online. One way was you would pay some agency a million bucks to do some sort of IBM Webster integration or some sort of Magento or, you know, some sort of Hybris integration. These bi…”
Harley Finkelstein May 12, 2017 ▶ 6:02 20VC: Building Shopify From $5m To IPO, Why The Future Of Retail Is Not Online vs Offline & Why Law School Is Like Finishing School For Entrepreneurs with Harley Finkelstein, COO @ Shopify
Jun 19, 2017 negative
Assertion Supported
Fenton: dotCloud was subscale and unviable due to Amazon competition
“When we were in the business model of dot cloud, that wasn't happening. We were subscale. Amazon was competitive in a way that I think it was clear to some of us that the business was no longer viable.”
Peter Fenton Jun 19, 2017 ▶ 12:26 20VC: Benchmark's Peter Fenton on How To Differentiate Between Good & Great VCs, Why Ownership Is A Bigger Determinant Of Returns Than Valuation & What Makes A Truly Exceptional Board Member
Jul 3, 2017 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Holler Browsing and Daily Engagement Rival Social Media Apps
“First is the percentage of orders that came from browse, not search. It was the vast majority. And that's amazing. It's people not going through with an intent to buy one item like you see on Amazon, but opening up the service just to discover what is going on…”
Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 24:00 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today
Jul 17, 2017 positive
Opinion
Amazon creates more consumer commerce opportunity than it destroys
“Amazon does more to make the market opportunity that we're investing in than it does to crush it.”
Kirsten Green Jul 17, 2017 ▶ 23:16 20VC: VC of The Year: Forerunner's Kirsten Green on 2 $Bn+ Exits in 1 Year, Why We Are In The Very Early Innings For Commerce & How Brand Has Fundamentally Changed Over The Last Decade
Aug 9, 2017 positive
Assertion Supported
Quintini: Amazon employs psychologists alongside engineers on the Alexa team
“If you look at what Amazon is doing with Alexa, they have not only for females working on it, but they have also a psychologist working on it.”
Renata Quintini Aug 9, 2017 ▶ 23:21 20VC: The 7 Requirements For Startup Scaling, Why VCs Must Approach Every Conversation with A Yes Mentality & Why We Will See The Humanisation of Technology with Renata Quintini, Partner @ Lux Capital
Aug 16, 2017 neutral
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Beisel: Amazon shipped 10 million Echo devices in 2016
“So, ten million devices were shipped in 2016.”
David Beisel Aug 16, 2017 ▶ 10:43 20VC: How To Design Investment Decision Making That Allows For Outliers, Why Personal Voice Computing Is The Next Big Platform & The Challenges That Could Prevent It with David Beisel, Founding Partner @ NextView Ventures
Aug 16, 2017 bullish
Prediction Held up
Beisel: Amazon will ship 20M to 40M Echo devices in 2017
“Somewhere between 20 to forty million are going to be Shipped in here in 2017.”
David Beisel Aug 16, 2017 ▶ 10:47 20VC: How To Design Investment Decision Making That Allows For Outliers, Why Personal Voice Computing Is The Next Big Platform & The Challenges That Could Prevent It with David Beisel, Founding Partner @ NextView Ventures
Aug 18, 2017 bearish
Opinion
Zwillinger: Nike selling on Amazon is a canary in the coal mine for footwear brands
“I think Nike just announced that they're going to start to sell on Amazon as well, which I think is quite a bellwether for the industry and a bit of a, if you want to use the other analogy, a canary in the coal mine for what is to come.”
Joey Zwillinger Aug 18, 2017 ▶ 9:11 20VC: What Larry Paige, Mary Meeker and Ben Horowitz All Have In Common, Why You Have To Build A Movement Not A Brand & Why This Really Is A Great Time To Be An Entrepreneur with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds
Aug 18, 2017 negative
Assertion Supported
Allbirds Co-Founder: Amazon Profits Off Knockoffs Targeting Allbirds Search Terms
“If you look at how Amazon does, even when you're not selling on their channel, enough people have typed in all birds on amazon.com such that there is a lot of knockoffs and other, perhaps you would call it similar looking products. That are now sold through Am…”
Joey Zwillinger Aug 18, 2017 ▶ 13:01 20VC: What Larry Paige, Mary Meeker and Ben Horowitz All Have In Common, Why You Have To Build A Movement Not A Brand & Why This Really Is A Great Time To Be An Entrepreneur with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds
Oct 25, 2017 bearish
Opinion
Nicole Quinn: Amazon is not your friend and clones successful products
“My view is always that Amazon is not your friend. They are maybe increasing the size of the overall pie. They are making companies' lives very, very difficult, and anything that's working, they see, and they decide to go after.”
Nicole Quinn Oct 25, 2017 ▶ 13:35 20VC: Lightspeed's Nicole Quinn on Why We Are Not In A Consumer Downturn, Why M&A Has Not Been This Exciting For A Long Time & Why Amazon Is Never Your Friend
Nov 27, 2017
Assertion Supported
Gordon: Amazon AWS, Kindle, and Prime were shaped in key board meetings
“I remember the board meeting on Amazon where we first talked About what become Amazon Web Services, AWS. I remember the first time, I remember a series of meetings that led to the presentation of Kindle. I remember a series of meetings that led to the presenta…”
Bing Gordon Nov 27, 2017 ▶ 11:58 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Bing Gordon on Lessons From Serving On Amazon & Zynga's Board, Why The Best Investors Are Good Listeners and Sceptical Optimists & The Most Important Value Add A VC Can Provide
Jan 3, 2018 negative
Opinion
Thau: Amazon accelerates sales but does not build brands
“I don't know that I believe that Amazon does a great job of helping build brands. Like, I don't see brands getting built on top of Amazon. I think it's a great accelerator.”
Kevin Thau Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 19:09 20VC: Why VC Is A Game of Maximising Serendipity, How VCs Can Characterise Their Approach To Working & Product Lessons from Jack Dorsey & Sonos' John MacFarlane with Kevin Thau, General Partner @ Spark Capital
Jan 5, 2018
Assertion Supported
Google and Amazon drone efforts focus primarily on internal package delivery
“Thus far, Google and Amazon have mostly been focused on how do we deliver packages with drones?”
Ben Marcus Jan 5, 2018 ▶ 9:16 20VC: What Is The Right Drone Investing Strategy, The Catalyst That Will Take Drones to 100s of Millions & Will Amazon and Google Win The War of The Airspace with Ben Marcus, Founder & CEO @ Airmap
Jan 8, 2018 bullish
Assertion Supported
Hans Tung: US E-Commerce Penetration Lags China's 15% at Just 8-9%
“Amazon has about 40% market share in the US. And e-commerce penetration into offline retail as a percentage of offline retail in the US is only eight or nine percent. In China, the same ratio is about 15%.”
Hans Tung Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 8:13 20VC: Why This Is Just The Start for Consumer Mobile, 3 Lessons China Taught About How To Invest Better In The US & How To Think About The Opportunity Cost of Capital Deployment with Hans Tung, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital
Jan 8, 2018 positive
Opinion
Hans Tung: Houzz's community-commerce model gives it an advantage over Amazon
“That experience where you have a community, content, and commerce is what we think is extremely differentiated from Amazon. At the same time, it is something that keeps getting users to come back over and over again. I find myself on a house almost once a day,…”
Hans Tung Jan 8, 2018 ▶ 12:11 20VC: Why This Is Just The Start for Consumer Mobile, 3 Lessons China Taught About How To Invest Better In The US & How To Think About The Opportunity Cost of Capital Deployment with Hans Tung, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital
Jan 10, 2018
Opinion
Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent exert more market dominance than US giants
“The top three exert An almost disproportionate influence on the market relative to even Amazon or Google in the US.”
Crystal Huang Jan 10, 2018 ▶ 17:56 20VC: 3 Key Differences Between US and Asian Tech Markets & With Such Large Incumbents Chasing Early Acquisitions, Is There A Market For Later Stage VC with Crystal Huang, Investor @ GGV Capital
Jan 10, 2018 negative
Disclosure
Every infrastructure startup pitches something Amazon, Microsoft, or Google could build
“Every pitch that I hear about infrastructure is ostensibly something that Amazon could do one day, right? Or Microsoft or Google”
Crystal Huang Jan 10, 2018 ▶ 20:56 20VC: 3 Key Differences Between US and Asian Tech Markets & With Such Large Incumbents Chasing Early Acquisitions, Is There A Market For Later Stage VC with Crystal Huang, Investor @ GGV Capital
Jan 12, 2018 bearish
Opinion
Davis: Amazon is destroying the traditional brand ecosystem
“I think Amazon is destroying the brand ecosystem. And that's the opportunity that we see at Glossier is to take digital and redefine it away from what Amazon is trying to make e-commerce.”
Henry Davis Jan 12, 2018 ▶ 17:17 20VC: Why Risk Is Misunderstood In Entrepreneurship, Why Acquisitions Are Cheap For Incumbents Today & 3 Strategies To Improve Diversity In Your Team with Henry Davis, President & COO @ Glossier
Jan 12, 2018 negative
Insight
Davis: Traditional brands rely on shelf hegemony, not true brand loyalty
“I think what a lot of brands are about to find out with the advent of Amazon is that they don't have as much brand loyalty as they think they do. They have product loyalty and shelf hegemony.”
Henry Davis Jan 12, 2018 ▶ 16:31 20VC: Why Risk Is Misunderstood In Entrepreneurship, Why Acquisitions Are Cheap For Incumbents Today & 3 Strategies To Improve Diversity In Your Team with Henry Davis, President & COO @ Glossier
Jan 12, 2018 bullish
Insight
Davis: Amazon won multi-brand e-commerce; new entrants must build single brands
“My thesis around e-commerce investing was that multi-brand e-commerce had already been won by Amazon, which was true then. It's even truer today. And if you wanted to play in e-commerce, you had to go the branded route.”
Henry Davis Jan 12, 2018 ▶ 4:45 20VC: Why Risk Is Misunderstood In Entrepreneurship, Why Acquisitions Are Cheap For Incumbents Today & 3 Strategies To Improve Diversity In Your Team with Henry Davis, President & COO @ Glossier
Jan 12, 2018 bullish
Assertion Partly supported
Davis: Amazon is on track to claim over 40% of US e-commerce
“Amazon's market share of US e-commerce, for example, was a third two years ago. I think it was 36 or 37% last year, and it's on track to be over 40% this year.”
Henry Davis Jan 12, 2018 ▶ 14:55 20VC: Why Risk Is Misunderstood In Entrepreneurship, Why Acquisitions Are Cheap For Incumbents Today & 3 Strategies To Improve Diversity In Your Team with Henry Davis, President & COO @ Glossier
Jan 22, 2018 bullish
Assertion Supported
Eurie Kim: Amazon is likely surpassing Macy's in US apparel sales
“They're probably surpassing Macy's now for number of dollars sold for apparel in the U.S.”
Eurie Kim Jan 22, 2018 ▶ 22:11 20VC: Why Brands Can Have The Same Revenue Multiples As Enterprise Companies & The Right Way To Think About Amazon In Today's World of Commerce with Eurie Kim, General Partner @ Forerunner Ventures
Mar 2, 2018 bullish
Insight
Naficy advises investing in consumer brands over online retailers
“And so if you're a brand, I would invest in a brand now. I'm not sure I would invest in any type of online retailer, but I would invest in brands because I think there's a cooperative relationship that can be formed with Amazon.”
Mariam Naficy Mar 2, 2018 ▶ 15:19 20VC: The Right Way For Founders To Think About Capital Efficiency, How To Create A Culture of Continuous Learning & The Secret To Talent Assessment and Optimisation with Mariam Naficy, Founder & CEO @ Minted
Mar 5, 2018 positive
Assertion Supported
Amazon scaled phenomenally as a first-party business without network effects
“Amazon is the prime example of a large company that started off as a first party business, which had no network effects, and they've done phenomenally well as they've scaled it.”
Anu Hariharan Mar 5, 2018 ▶ 15:43 20VC: Why, How and When To Think About Growth Teams, The Right Way To Think About Network Effects & Scaling from Phase 1 To Phase 2 of Startup Life with Anu Hariharan, Partner @ YC Continuity Fund
Mar 12, 2018 positive
Opinion
Taussig: Amazon Benefits Startups by Weakening Legacy Retailers
“I don't think it's because Amazon helps startups. They certainly don't really do much for startups, but they have weakened the traditional retailers. I think they've made it easier for startups to scale faster and take market share away from those legacy playe…”
Alex Taussig Mar 12, 2018 ▶ 31:18 20VC: Lightspeed's Alex Taussig on VC Risk Mentality, The Current State of Retail & The Mechanics of Cash Flow
Mar 12, 2018 positive
Assertion Supported
Taussig: Amazon burned only $3 million in cash before its 1997 IPO
“When Amazon went public in 1997, up until that time, it had only consumed about three million dollars of cash, and that's about half of what it would have burned without the negative working capital effect.”
Alex Taussig Mar 12, 2018 ▶ 24:36 20VC: Lightspeed's Alex Taussig on VC Risk Mentality, The Current State of Retail & The Mechanics of Cash Flow
Mar 12, 2018 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Taussig: Amazon's days payable was 3-4x inventory in 1995-1998
“Their days payable was about three to four times their day's inventory from 1995 to 1998. About two times in 1999.”
Alex Taussig Mar 12, 2018 ▶ 24:19 20VC: Lightspeed's Alex Taussig on VC Risk Mentality, The Current State of Retail & The Mechanics of Cash Flow
Mar 23, 2018 positive
Disclosure
Dan Lewis says Amazon influenced Convoy's culture more than Google
“I think the one that certainly influenced me the most, primarily because I was doing it right before I started Convoy, was Amazon.”
Dan Lewis Mar 23, 2018 ▶ 4:33 20VC: How To Strategically Build The Right Investor Base, Why Startup Timing is Like Surfing & How To Determine Whether Someone is Scaling with the Organisation or Not with Daniel Lewis, Founder & CEO @ Convoy
Mar 23, 2018 positive
Insight
Dan Lewis: Core values must drive daily meetings, not just recruiting
“Having a set of core values that you don't just use to talk about the business to recruits, but they use every single day in meetings and in reviews and in hiring and these values, you kind of go back and back, you know, you go back to over and over again.”
Dan Lewis Mar 23, 2018 ▶ 4:44 20VC: How To Strategically Build The Right Investor Base, Why Startup Timing is Like Surfing & How To Determine Whether Someone is Scaling with the Organisation or Not with Daniel Lewis, Founder & CEO @ Convoy
Mar 23, 2018 positive
Disclosure
Dan Lewis: Convoy used famous founder investors to win traditional customers
“And so when we were able to get investors that had built significant companies to come be a part of Convoy, that lent a lot of credibility and trust to our customers where they could say, okay, the founder of Amazon or the person who, you know, created and dev…”
Dan Lewis Mar 23, 2018 ▶ 10:19 20VC: How To Strategically Build The Right Investor Base, Why Startup Timing is Like Surfing & How To Determine Whether Someone is Scaling with the Organisation or Not with Daniel Lewis, Founder & CEO @ Convoy
Mar 26, 2018
Assertion Supported
Loftus: Big Tech Buyer Softening Has Kept Startup Acquisition Prices Moderate
“So I haven't seen a ton of price increase, but I do think that's because in my view, even though you've seen new entrants into the market, There's been softening at the other end of the market from the Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon end.”
James Loftus Mar 26, 2018 ▶ 10:10 20VC: How Great VCs Handle Themselves In An M&A Process, Why M&A Has Become The Primary Method of Exit & How The Best M&A Teams Operationalise Their Process with James Loftus, Corporate Development Lead @ Square
Apr 20, 2018 positive
Opinion
Zappacosta: Marketplaces do not inherently sacrifice NPS on one side
“I think that's bogus. I think that's definitely not true of Amazon. It's definitely not true of Airbnb, and it shouldn't be true of a service marketplace either.”
Marco Zappacosta Apr 20, 2018 ▶ 20:26 20VC: Thumbtack's Marco Zappacosta on The 3 Core Elements To All Board Meetings, Raising $250m from Sequoia and Why You Have To Win Supply Side Acquisition First For Marketplace Success
Apr 20, 2018 positive
Opinion
Zappacosta: Forming a founding team before finding an idea is valid
“So we kind of did what you're not supposed to do, which is decide to start a business and then go hunt for an idea. However, I think that actually gets a very bad rap here in the And it's a very tried and true method. You know, Amazon did that. Microsoft did t…”
Marco Zappacosta Apr 20, 2018 ▶ 3:22 20VC: Thumbtack's Marco Zappacosta on The 3 Core Elements To All Board Meetings, Raising $250m from Sequoia and Why You Have To Win Supply Side Acquisition First For Marketplace Success
Jul 17, 2018 positive
Opinion
Gil: Google, Apple, and Amazon prove public companies stay innovative
“The most innovative companies in technology are actually the big public ones, right? I would argue that Google and Apple and, you know, Amazon are the most innovative companies in the world, and they do that as public companies.”
Elad Gil Jul 17, 2018 ▶ 38:44 20VC: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook on The Commonalities of The Truly Great CEOs, How To Hire The Very Best Execs, Why Cash is A Defensible Moat Today & The Pros and Cons of M&A and IPOs
Jul 17, 2018 negative
Insight
Elad Gil: Amazon's Low-Margin Playbook Fails for Most Tech Companies
“I think that in Silicon Valley, too many people are stuck on Amazon as the primary model for what will succeed as a company, and Amazon is actually the exception versus the rule. In other words, Amazon is a company that went for very high market share with ver…”
Elad Gil Jul 17, 2018 ▶ 28:28 20VC: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook on The Commonalities of The Truly Great CEOs, How To Hire The Very Best Execs, Why Cash is A Defensible Moat Today & The Pros and Cons of M&A and IPOs
Jul 23, 2018 bearish
Disclosure
Maveron keeps investments unannounced due to competition from Amazon
“You know, my last three core investments still haven't been announced, largely out of fear of competition, both from Amazon.”
Jason Stoffer Jul 23, 2018 ▶ 27:34 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron
Jul 23, 2018 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Every Maveron portfolio Series B faces questions about Amazon
“Every single Series B that our portfolio companies raise, the question raised is, what's Amazon going to do?”
Jason Stoffer Jul 23, 2018 ▶ 25:09 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron
Jul 23, 2018 negative
Insight
Emotional brand connection is the best weapon to beat Amazon
“I think there's the best way to beat Amazon is with heart. I think Amazon doesn't create the emotional connection with a brand that, say, a Chewy's did, or a Zappos did.”
Jason Stoffer Jul 23, 2018 ▶ 25:35 20VC: The Metrics That Matter In Early-Stage Consumer, Why Moats Matter More Than Brand Today and How VCs Deal with S*** Hit The Fan Moments with Jason Stoffer, Managing Partner @ Maveron
Aug 6, 2018 bullish
Prediction Held up
Brown: Consumer habit of starting product searches on Amazon will not change
“We're definitely seeing a world that's dominated by Amazon. I think that's for sure. We're definitely seeing a consumer funnel of, I start on Amazon for just about every purchase that I make, and I don't think that's going to change.”
Nick Brown Aug 6, 2018 ▶ 27:32 20VC: 3 Core Considerations When Investing In Physical Product Co's, Are We In A Direct-To-Consumer Bubble & Why Many Sub $100m Funds Are Moving Earlier and Earlier with Nick Brown, Managing Partner @ Imaginary
Sep 24, 2018
Assertion Supported
Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon all launched in seemingly small niche markets
“All of those companies look small in the beginning, you know, Airbnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, like the lists, you know, even Uber in the beginning, they all looked like they were going after something small in the beginning, Amazon just doing books.”
Sarah Tavel Sep 24, 2018 ▶ 13:26 20VC: Benchmark's Sarah Tavel on Why Investing Success Lies In Small Markets Adjacent To Very Large Ones, Why You Have To Be Judicious On When To Pay Up vs Be More Price Sensitive & Why Crypto Investing Is Like The Early Days of AdTech Investing
Oct 1, 2018 neutral
Insight
Kaden: Amazon dominates functional shopping but leaves room for emotional discovery
“My view is that Amazon is dominating, but it's a specific tactical and emotional piece of the commerce puzzle, and it's largely functional. They're the best at logistics. They're the best at assortment. They're the best at speed. They're somewhat the best at v…”
Rebecca Kaden Oct 1, 2018 ▶ 13:56 20VC: USV's Rebecca Kaden on Whether Venture Returns Can Be Made At Scale In Consumer Today & How To Navigate Consumer Investing In A World of Amazon
Oct 1, 2018 bearish
Prediction Held up
Kaden: USV will not invest in startups competing directly with Amazon
“So the short answer is I don't want to invest In companies that think they're going to take down Amazon right now, because I believe it's extremely difficult, particularly at the stage we're going at.”
Rebecca Kaden Oct 1, 2018 ▶ 13:42 20VC: USV's Rebecca Kaden on Whether Venture Returns Can Be Made At Scale In Consumer Today & How To Navigate Consumer Investing In A World of Amazon
Oct 29, 2018 bullish
Assertion Contradicted
US government procurement spending is ten times Amazon's Gross Merchandise Volume
“The U.S. Government spends a trillion dollars a year on stuff. Forget about, like, missiles and submarines. I'm talking about, like, paper and pencils. It's 10 times Amazon's current GMV, just what the U.S. Government spends every year.”
Ron Bouganim Oct 29, 2018 ▶ 26:01 20VC: The 2 Core Roles Played By The Best Seed Investors Today, What To Look For In Potential Co-Investors & Why Seed Funds Can Grow Ownership in Their Best Companies Across Rounds with Ron Bouganim, Founder @ Govtech Fund
Nov 2, 2018 positive
Opinion
Offline retailers will prefer Instacart over Amazon as a partner
“Offline retailers need Instacart to work. Amazon is too much of a threat. Instacart is closer to a partner.”
Ryan Caldbeck Nov 2, 2018 ▶ 30:08 20VC: Ryan Caldbeck on Why The Business Model of VC is Broken, Who is To Blame, How The Best Funds Will Use Data Intelligently Moving Forward & Whether We Are In A Consumer Bubble Or Not?
Dec 3, 2018 bearish
Opinion
Danny Rimer: Amazon Is Poorly Positioned to Capture Niche Consumer Markets
“As much as Amazon is fantastic on the mainstream, we think that when it comes to niches, Amazon is not particularly well positioned to go after it.”
Danny Rimer Dec 3, 2018 ▶ 10:46 20VC: Index's Danny Rimer on His Biggest Lessons On Price, Ownership, Board Dynamics & Building Consumer Businesses from Backing The Likes of King, Skype, Farfetch, Glossier and more...
Dec 3, 2018 neutral
Assertion Supported
Danny Rimer: Amazon Spends More on R&D Than Any Tech Company Historically
“I guess they're spending more on R&D than any other company in the history of technology at this point.”
Danny Rimer Dec 3, 2018 ▶ 10:36 20VC: Index's Danny Rimer on His Biggest Lessons On Price, Ownership, Board Dynamics & Building Consumer Businesses from Backing The Likes of King, Skype, Farfetch, Glossier and more...
Dec 3, 2018
Assertion Supported
Danny Rimer Maintained Buy Ratings on All 1990s Internet IPOs
“So I co-authored one of the first reports, if not shamefully the first report on the internet, And then was an internet analyst for the first wave of the internet, so from 94 to 99, and I had all buys on all my universe of stocks, so we took Amazon public, and…”
Danny Rimer Dec 3, 2018 ▶ 5:39 20VC: Index's Danny Rimer on His Biggest Lessons On Price, Ownership, Board Dynamics & Building Consumer Businesses from Backing The Likes of King, Skype, Farfetch, Glossier and more...
Dec 14, 2018
Disclosure
Brightwheel uses Amazon-style written docs and hiring scorecards
“We borrow from Amazon that we use docs, for example, to facilitate decision-making and writing down narratives. And if someone is going to struggle or hate working in that type of environment, I think it's better for all of us to figure that out at the outset.…”
Dave Vasen Dec 14, 2018 ▶ 11:22 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Always Be Raising, How To Build Relationships with VCs In A Condensed Timeframe, Why The Founder To VC Relationship Is Not Like A Marriage with Dave Vasen, Founder & CEO @ Brightwheel
Dec 14, 2018
Assertion Partly supported
Jeff Bezos is investing $2 billion into the early education space
“And you know, by the way, it's also investing around two billion in early education in our space, so that one's easy.”
Dave Vasen Dec 14, 2018 ▶ 28:10 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Always Be Raising, How To Build Relationships with VCs In A Condensed Timeframe, Why The Founder To VC Relationship Is Not Like A Marriage with Dave Vasen, Founder & CEO @ Brightwheel
Dec 17, 2018 negative
Insight
Lean startup methodology fails when trying to compete against Amazon
“There's no lean startup methodology that's going to get you into competing with something like Amazon”
Ted Wang Dec 17, 2018 ▶ 9:55 20VC: A Framework For Approaching Risk and How It Affects Portfolio Construction | Lessons and Advice From Working with Dropbox's Drew Houston | Why Being A Learning Animal Is The Most Important Factor For Success with Ted Wang, Partner @ Cowboy Ventures
Jan 15, 2019 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Destin: PillPack Built Its Pharmacy Software With Just 50 Engineers
“I mean, PillPack is a company that got acquired by Amazon for a billion dollars. Guess how many engineers they have? 45. This is a tiny engineering team that built a pharmacy operating system, which, you know, the incumbents have supposedly spent half a billio…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 13:15 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Feb 8, 2019 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Midha: Late-entrant platforms will disrupt and displace incumbent VC firms
“I think that venture capital is going to go the way of past financiers of creative mediums where usually you have, you know, the early folks end up being pretty comfy execs because they took a risk on the industry and on early creatives when there weren't too …”
Anjney Midha Feb 8, 2019 ▶ 8:58 20VC: What Makes The Best Venture Firms Today So Special, The 3 Structural Impediments That Face Venture Today and Why The Debate on AR vs VR is BS with Anjney Midha, Founder & CEO @ Ubiquity6
Feb 8, 2019
Assertion Partly supported
Midha: Kleiner Perkins' highest IRR investment was Juniper Networks, not Google
“When I was actually studying Kleiner Perkins' returns history, when I was at the firm in the year, the nineties and the 2000, I think one of the highest IR investments that Kleiner ended up ever making was not Google. It was not Amazon. It was Juniper networks…”
Anjney Midha Feb 8, 2019 ▶ 14:31 20VC: What Makes The Best Venture Firms Today So Special, The 3 Structural Impediments That Face Venture Today and Why The Debate on AR vs VR is BS with Anjney Midha, Founder & CEO @ Ubiquity6
Mar 15, 2019 bearish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Traditional banks lack capability to underwrite individual DTC transactions
“With marketplaces like Amazon, social platforms like Instagram, and e-com platforms like Shopify, the buyer is now individuals, not stores. And factors and banks don't know how to underwrite that scenario, and we do.”
Adam Pritzker Mar 15, 2019 ▶ 9:21 20VC: Why The Current VC Financing Mechanism For Consumer Brands Is Broken, Why The Infrastructure To Power Emerging Brands Is Broken and What The Re-Platforming of Retail Means For The Next Decade in Consumer with Adam Pritzker, Chairman & CEO @ Assemble
Apr 22, 2019 bullish
Assertion Supported
Liew: Largest e-commerce outcomes are multi-brand retailers competing with Amazon
“The biggest outcomes in the space had been in companies that were multi-brand retailers, and in some sense competing with Amazon and doing so successfully.”
Jeremy Liew Apr 22, 2019 ▶ 32:09 20VC: Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew on Why It Is More Important To Be Right Than Contrarian, The Most Common Mistakes Made By Hyper-Growth Companies & 3 Characteristics That Make An Individual Incredible At Sourcing
May 6, 2019 negative
Assertion Supported
Amazon's Google AdWords spending makes customer acquisition prohibitive for upstart brands
“On frankly, Google AdWords to grow very quickly online, but now Amazon is the number one spender on Google AdWords, and frankly, they're making the cost of customer acquisition almost prohibitive for many of these new upstart brands”
Brendan Wallace May 6, 2019 ▶ 15:39 20VC: Why Consumer Brands Must Embrace Physical Retail To Avoid Inflated Online CACs, How To Alter Fund Strategy When Investing In Consumer Retail & Why The Era of The 1,000 Store Brand Is Over with Brendan Wallace, Founder and Managing Partner @ Fifth Wa
May 6, 2019 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
The top 200 digitally native brands are growing faster than Amazon
“Actually, if you look at kind of the top 200 digitally native brands, they're actually growing faster than Amazon, independently of Amazon, and many of them don't sell their products on Amazon.”
Brendan Wallace May 6, 2019 ▶ 32:48 20VC: Why Consumer Brands Must Embrace Physical Retail To Avoid Inflated Online CACs, How To Alter Fund Strategy When Investing In Consumer Retail & Why The Era of The 1,000 Store Brand Is Over with Brendan Wallace, Founder and Managing Partner @ Fifth Wa
Nov 15, 2019 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Independent merchants reject Amazon checkout tools due to business model conflicts
“We know that Amazon is so conflicted with merchants that merchants don't want to be incorporating Amazon into their own environments.”
Dom Holland Nov 15, 2019 ▶ 13:46 20VC: Why Speed Is The Biggest Differentiator a Founder Can Have, How To Hire Seasoned Tier 1 Talent To An Early Stage Startup & How To Start, Scale and Manage Remote Teams with Domm Holland, Founder & CEO @ Fast
Dec 2, 2019 positive
Opinion
Tisch: Tech industry criticism of Amazon ignores core consumer value
“I think that the big companies get punished and shit on by our industry just to sort of feel good. There are total negatives that The big companies are contributing to, but in reality, if you ask a normal consumer, do they love Amazon? Amazon will bring them w…”
David Tisch Dec 2, 2019 ▶ 33:48 20VC: BoxGroup's David Tisch on Whether Concentrated Investing At Seed Works, Do Founders Really Want Direct Feedback and Is It Good For Them & Why Consumer Social Is Interesting Again
Jan 17, 2020
Insight
Generational tech giants become distribution channels rather than relying on them
“Yeah, honestly, the biggest and best companies ever, you know, generational businesses today, the Cisco's, Facebook's, Apple's, Amazon's of the world, they don't rely on those channels very much. Like, in fact, they do become those channels.”
Sumit Gajri Jan 17, 2020 ▶ 28:04 20VC: Portfolio Construction, Optimising SPVs, Opportunity Investing "Between Rounds", Being Distribution-Centric Over Product-Centric and Capital Concentration Within Funds With Sumeet Gajri, Chief Strategy Officer @ Carta
Jan 27, 2020 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Stebbings: 43% of venture dollars go directly to Facebook, Google, and Amazon
“I think it's 43%, according to Clearbank. I might have to check that, but I believe 43% of venture dollars goes directly back to Facebook, Google, and Amazon, as a fun fact.”
Harry Stebbings Jan 27, 2020 ▶ 22:00 20VC: Moxxie Ventures' Katie Stanton on What It Takes To Raise A First Time Fund As A Solo GP, The Entrance of Multi-Stage Funds Into Seed Rounds and The Inverse Relationship of Those That Fund Diverse Managers and Those That Say They Do
Feb 21, 2020
Insight
Shear: Founders must separate core thesis persistence from tactical pivots
“I do generally believe you want to know the bedrock first principle things about the world that you have faith in. So a good example of this might be like Amazon believing that commerce is going to go online in the nineties. Amazon clearly had a belief shoppin…”
Emmett Shear Feb 21, 2020 ▶ 11:48 20VC: Twitch Founder & CEO Emmett Shear on When To Persist vs When To Give Up For Entrepreneurs, The Fundamental Tension When Scaling Orgs and How To Optimise Them & How The Role of CEO Fundamentally Changes with Scale
May 18, 2020 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Helmer: The specific economic powers behind Apple, Amazon, Google, and Netflix
“So Facebook, obviously, network economies. Apple is, they're a variety. Brand switching costs, scale. Amazon is primarily scale. Netflix is primarily scale. Google is probably network economies.”
Hamilton Helmer May 18, 2020 ▶ 31:06 20VC: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy: Deconstructing Economies of Scale, How To Assess True Market Size, Assessing Risk vs Uncertainty, What "Brand As Power" Really Means with Hamilton Helmer, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Offi
Aug 31, 2020 neutral
Assertion Supported
Hartz: Microsoft and Amazon both IPO'd at $500M valuations
“If you look back at Microsoft in the 19 eighties or Amazon in the 19 nineties, one would maybe not recall that they went public at a five hundred million dollar valuation each”
Kevin Hartz Aug 31, 2020 ▶ 10:49 20VC: SPACs. What Are They? Why Now? How Do They Change The Venture Landscape? Are They Better Than IPOs & Direct Listings? How Should Founders Think About Them? Kevin Hartz & Troy Steckenrider @ A*
Sep 8, 2020
Assertion Supported
Strange: Amazon issued $1 billion in small business loans in 2019
“Like Amazon has done a billion dollars in S&D loans last year”
Angela Strange Sep 8, 2020 ▶ 26:58 20VC: a16z's Angela Strange on Why Every Company Will Be A Fintech Company, How Founders Should Think About Niches and Optimal Insertion Points, How To Transition To Become The System of Record & Are We Entering A Period of Bundling Or Unbundling for Fint
Jan 4, 2021 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Gurley: Markets favoring growth over profits create massive company wrecks
“When the world is rewarding, aggressive growth, don't care about profitability, you're going to have a mix of end results. You're going to have some of the snowflakes in Amazons, and you're going to end up with a lot of wrecks on the, you know, massive wrecks.”
Bill Gurley Jan 4, 2021 ▶ 9:15 20VC: Bill Gurley and Howard Marks: What Happened In 2020? What Can We Expect Looking Forward to 2021?
Jan 18, 2021 bullish
Opinion
Silverman: Etsy is best positioned to be the alternative to Amazon
“I can't think of any company better positioned to be the alternative to Amazon than Etsy.”
Josh Silverman Jan 18, 2021 ▶ 10:51 20VC: Etsy CEO, Josh Silverman on 2 Defining Traits of Great Leadership, The Danger of Attaching Happiness To Milestones, How To Structure Teams To Optimise for Experimentation and Agility &Whether You Learn More From Success Than Failure
Feb 8, 2021 bullish
Insight
Tech companies have become long-duration assets like bonds, argues Eisenberg
“But the second thing is technology has become a long duration asset, which it never was before. So you used to think of bonds as long duration assets or Refrigerators is long duration assets. Houses. But now people look at Amazon and go, whoa, 30 years plus so…”
Michael Eisenberg Feb 8, 2021 ▶ 15:06 20VC: Aleph's Michael Eisenberg on Why Generalists Over Specialists, Why Boutique Smaller Firms Over Multi-Stage Firms, Portfolio Construction Theory, Capital Concentration Limits and How To Think Through Reserve Allocations with Market Cycles in Mind?
Feb 26, 2021 bullish
Disclosure
Spence: Sonos rejected making $29 speakers to compete with Amazon and Google
“My experience from RIM led me to believe, no, that's exactly what we shouldn't do. We're not going to respond in that way. We're going to build on what we do, which is an open platform. And we're going to take the most useful part of those products, which is t…”
Patrick Spence Feb 26, 2021 ▶ 10:55 20VC: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence on His Biggest Lessons Building and Growing Blackberry, The Right Way to View Competition and Innovation Cycles & How To Make The Transition From COO To CEO Most Effectively
Mar 1, 2021 positive
Assertion Supported
Klarna restructured into eight-person cross-functional teams inspired by Netflix and Amazon
“At the end, around 16 and 17, I got a new management team in place. Niklas had left, and the marriage quarrel were gone. And so we were finally able to sit down seriously and talk through how do we think we create a culture and a setup that works. And we decid…”
Sebastian Siemiatkowski Mar 1, 2021 ▶ 19:12 20VC: Klarna Founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski on Scaling Europe's Most Valuable Private Tech Company, How To Motivate and Challenge Your Team Most Effectively & The Biggest Lessons From Working with Mike Moritz
Apr 1, 2021 positive
Insight
Linda Lian: Company values serve as a framework for constructive disagreement
“I always saw Amazon's values as a way, a framework for disagreement. It enables employees to lean on the values to advocate for what they think is right, even when it is counter to what their leadership may think.”
Linda Lian Apr 1, 2021 ▶ 8:19 20VC: How To Deliver Feedback with Compassion and Clarity, WTF Are Values Really and How To Instill Them & Raising $50M+ From Index and Greylock but Remaining in Stealth for 12 Months with Linda Lian, Co-Founder & CEO @ CommonRoom
May 7, 2021 bullish
Assertion Contradicted
In the early 2000s, eBay's media category surpassed Amazon's total GMV
“I think eBay's media category was bigger than Amazon's GMV. So eBay was really in those days like Amazon plus Google.”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 24:27 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
Jul 22, 2021 positive
Opinion
Immelt: In 2000, General Electric felt a lot like Amazon
“Back in the year, 2000, GE felt a lot like Amazon.”
Jeff Immelt Jul 22, 2021 ▶ 2:41 20VC: Jeff Immelt on Leadership Lessons from 16 Years as CEO @ GE, Incumbent Innovation; Why Some Have Failed and Other Succeeded, When Boards Have A Positive vs Negative Impact on a Company & The One Fear Startup Founders Are Allowed To Have
Sep 27, 2021 bearish
Assertion Contradicted
Amazon and Walmart lose trillions annually in inventory waste
“If you look into the inventory losses and the wastage costs of the likes of Walmart, or even an Amazon, or like normal supermarket chain, it's in the trillions of how much they're losing on a yearly basis of like food and other items that are actually being so…”
Ralf Wenzel Sep 27, 2021 ▶ 10:58 20VC: The Rise of Quick Commerce and Why CPGs ARe Misaligned Being Powered By Ad Spend, The 5 Core Components Consumers Care About When Ordering Today & Why Amazon and Alibaba Will Not Be The Big Players in 10 Years with Ralf Wenzel, Founder & CEO @ JOKR
Sep 27, 2021 bearish
Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2031
Amazon and Alibaba will lose top e-commerce positions within 10 years
“I think in 10 years from now, Amazon and Alibaba will not be the biggest e-commerce companies anymore. They will get disrupted by other companies, younger companies, more creative, more agile companies, and I think people will look back at Amazon and Alibaba l…”
Ralf Wenzel Sep 27, 2021 ▶ 34:21 20VC: The Rise of Quick Commerce and Why CPGs ARe Misaligned Being Powered By Ad Spend, The 5 Core Components Consumers Care About When Ordering Today & Why Amazon and Alibaba Will Not Be The Big Players in 10 Years with Ralf Wenzel, Founder & CEO @ JOKR
Oct 18, 2021 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Simo: Instacart will empower local grocers to compete with Amazon
“And I think it means that we will have helped our retail partners really compete against Amazon and we'll have Given them all of the technology tools so that they remain at the center of local communities and allow local communities to thrive.”
Fidji Simo Oct 18, 2021 ▶ 34:52 20VC: Instacart CEO Fidji Simo on Why You Need Sponsors Not Mentors, Where Management Skills Align with Good Parenting & The First 100 Days as CEO at Instacart; The Challenges, The Surprises and The Next Chapter
Nov 22, 2021 neutral
Assertion Supported
Eugene Wei: Amazon adopted six-page memos to curb charismatic PowerPoint presenters
“The reason Amazon moved to the six-page memo process was in part because they felt like PowerPoint and the prevalence of PowerPoint in meetings gave too much power to charismatic speakers.”
Eugene Wei Nov 22, 2021 ▶ 9:02 20VC: Eugene Wei on "Status as a Service", Why Networks Grow and Stop Growing, The Worst Design Choices Social Media Incumbents Have Made & The Next 10 Years of Media and the Metaverse
Nov 22, 2021 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wei: An Amazon recruiter hired him after saving his unqualified cover letter
“I wrote a super long cover letter. This is the era before companies had computers just screening resumes, and I wrote this really long, impassioned cover letter, and a recruiter read it and said, well, he's obviously not qualified for this job, but this cover …”
Eugene Wei Nov 22, 2021 ▶ 4:30 20VC: Eugene Wei on "Status as a Service", Why Networks Grow and Stop Growing, The Worst Design Choices Social Media Incumbents Have Made & The Next 10 Years of Media and the Metaverse
Nov 22, 2021 positive
Insight
Wei: Bezos encoded strategic messages to make them stick with employees
“Jeff realized, hey, I actually have to encode my messages and deliver them in a way which makes them memorable, and so I saw him evolve his way of communicating to the company in order to sort of really, like, harden his messages, to make them almost viral, to…”
Eugene Wei Nov 22, 2021 ▶ 11:19 20VC: Eugene Wei on "Status as a Service", Why Networks Grow and Stop Growing, The Worst Design Choices Social Media Incumbents Have Made & The Next 10 Years of Media and the Metaverse
Feb 21, 2022 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Doerr: Amazon almost ran out of cash after going public
“That, by the way, was true also of Amazon. Amazon almost ran out of cash after it was public as well.”
John Doerr Feb 21, 2022 ▶ 27:50 How I Bought 12% of Google for $12M; How VC is Fixing Climate Change | John Doerr Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 8, 2022 negative
Opinion
Liaw: Regulatory fear has chilled M&A for Meta, Google, Amazon, and Apple
“I think that probably the bigger challenge is for a lot of the biggest mega cap tech companies, fear of regulation and regulatory authority intervention is probably causing a lot of them to say, this is probably not worth our time, right? So it's kind of a fun…”
Eric Liaw Apr 8, 2022 ▶ 11:53 20VC: What Happens To Growth Rounds in this New Environment? Where is the Funding Crunch? How Does This Impact M&A and Going Public? How do Crossover Funds Respond? What Does it Mean For Early Stage and more with Eric Liaw, General Partner @ IVP
Jun 8, 2022 bullish
Prediction Held up
Ian Lee: NFT-Powered Spotify and YouTube Alternatives Will Emerge by 2024
“So good example of this is that I think that like NFT powered commerce in Web three, NFT powered digital media and various kind of social media platforms. That I knew or believed were gonna happen in 10 years or so, I think are now possible in the next two to …”
Ian Lee Jun 8, 2022 ▶ 52:29 Ian Lee: Why DAOs Will Replace Venture Capital; Biggest Threat to Web3 | 20VC #893 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 22, 2022 bearish
Opinion
Samani: Bitcoin is nonsense and not an inflation hedge
“No. Bitcoin is nonsense. It does not, there are so many ways to, you can choose to have a productive asset or a nonproductive asset. And then there are many assets that are naturally good hedges against inflation. The obvious of which is like Walmart and Amazo…”
Kyle Samani Jul 22, 2022 ▶ 47:35 Kyle Samani: Why Bitcoin is Not a Hedge Against Inflation | 20VC #909 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 12, 2022 bullish
Insight
Claure: Entry valuation is irrelevant for companies targeting massive addressable markets
“The key is to determine in advance if it's a company where price matters or it doesn't. For some companies with an immense opportunity, think of Alibaba, think of Facebook, think of Google, think of Amazon, whatever. It was worth coming in at almost any price …”
Marcelo Claure Aug 12, 2022 ▶ 3:12 20VC: 13 of the Great Investing Minds on When to Pay Up vs When To Remain Disciplined and Walk Because the Price is too High: The Ultimate Guide to Price Sensitivity
Dec 7, 2022 bullish
Insight
Empowered engineers are foundational to top tech companies like Tesla and Apple
“There is nothing more than, more important than empowered engineers. And if you look, you know, if you look at companies like Tesla, SpaceX, Google, Amazon, Stripe, Apple, that's the foundation of every one of those companies, empowered engineers.”
Marty Cagan Dec 7, 2022 ▶ 53:02 Marty Cagan: Product Lessons from Steve Jobs and Elon Musk; Why do we idolize engineers? | 20VC #957 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 7, 2022 negative
Insight
Big Tech success does not guarantee success at new startups
“They get somebody from Amazon, they get somebody from Stripe, somebody that's clearly experienced what good looks like. But then they assume that just because they were successful there, that they're going to be successful in our company. And that's not a true…”
Marty Cagan Dec 7, 2022 ▶ 56:14 Marty Cagan: Product Lessons from Steve Jobs and Elon Musk; Why do we idolize engineers? | 20VC #957 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 7, 2022 positive
Insight
Writing product narratives forces deep thinking and accelerates execution
“Like Stripe, Amazon, they believe think deeply to really. So for example, the written narrative is a way to force you to really think Think things through and then you're gonna move a lot faster.”
Marty Cagan Dec 7, 2022 ▶ 1:02:12 Marty Cagan: Product Lessons from Steve Jobs and Elon Musk; Why do we idolize engineers? | 20VC #957 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 16, 2023 bearish
Assertion Contradicted
Jordan: Amazon was the only profitable e-commerce business due to low defensibility
“Early on, I was a big proponent of that e-commerce was going to clean the clock of the department stores. I got the thesis half right. Share did shift. No one could make money other than Amazon because of there's just no defensibility, no barriers to entry.”
Jeff Jordan Jan 16, 2023 ▶ 15:52 a16z GP Jeff Jordan: The Ultimate Guide to Two-Sided Marketplaces | 20VC #966 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 24, 2023 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jordan: Amazon Was the Only Profitable Direct E-Commerce Company
“No one could make money other than Amazon because of there's just no defensibility, no barriers to entry.”
Jeff Jordan Jan 24, 2023 ▶ 10:04 The Ultimate Guide for Building a Two-Sided Marketplace | a16z's Jeff Jordan · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 3, 2023 bullish
Opinion
Siminoff: Amazon Respects Its Acquisitions More Than Any Other Corporate Buyer
“Amazon's had a lot of acquisitions that have been successful, maybe more than anyone. And I think the one thing I would say is that they respect the companies they buy.”
Jamie Siminoff Mar 3, 2023 ▶ 50:33 Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff: The $1BN Amazon Acquisition; How Richard Branson Invested | 20VC #984 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 3, 2023 bullish
Disclosure
Siminoff: Selling to Amazon or IPO Were Ring's Only Acceptable Exits
“I told my investors, I told Amazon, I was either going to go public or sell to Amazon. Those are my two options. And it was because the only company that I felt would really take the mission Take it and allow us to keep executing on it and stay true to it was …”
Jamie Siminoff Mar 3, 2023 ▶ 39:25 Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff: The $1BN Amazon Acquisition; How Richard Branson Invested | 20VC #984 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 3, 2023
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Ring Signed Amazon Acquisition Term Sheet on January 1, 2018
“That was going into the holidays of 2017. We signed the term sheet with Amazon on January first of 2018. So literally like, it was like a, from solving this to selling to Amazon was like 45 days.”
Jamie Siminoff Mar 3, 2023 ▶ 18:40 Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff: The $1BN Amazon Acquisition; How Richard Branson Invested | 20VC #984 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 3, 2023 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jeff Bezos Emailed Siminoff Post-Acquisition: "Don't Let Us Mess It Up"
“First email I got the day it closed, you know, came from Jeff and said, like, don't let us, you know, mess, mess it up. You know, you, like, you know, like you are in control.”
Jamie Siminoff Mar 3, 2023 ▶ 50:12 Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff: The $1BN Amazon Acquisition; How Richard Branson Invested | 20VC #984 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 8, 2023 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Mar 2028
Coates: Shopify competes directly with Amazon today
“Well, I mean, Shafak meets with Amazon today. Oh, absolutely. Hundred percent. Hundred percent.”
Glen Coates Mar 8, 2023 ▶ 45:04 Glen Coates: Why Shopify Will Dominate Amazon; How Microsoft Made Smartest Move of 2023 | E986 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 28, 2023 negative
Opinion
Guo: Google, Amazon, and Apple are not leading the AI race
“I think you'd be hard pressed to say that, like, Google or Amazon or Apple is, like, leading the field here.”
Sarah Guo Apr 28, 2023 ▶ 25:13 Sarah Guo: On Her New $101M Fund; How AI Impacts Inequality; AI Startups vs Incumbents | E1007 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 28, 2023 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Guo: Amazon and Apple must invest heavily to catch up in AI
“I think that Amazon and Apple will have to make more investments over time in these technologies than, like, they don't have labs doing cutting edge work when, like, They have the skill to support them.”
Sarah Guo Apr 28, 2023 ▶ 25:29 Sarah Guo: On Her New $101M Fund; How AI Impacts Inequality; AI Startups vs Incumbents | E1007 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 3, 2023 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hankes: Best AI Talent Remains Heavily Clustered in Big Tech
“If you think about where the best talent in AI is right now, I think it's OpenAI, And then I think you'd, everyone would tell you it is Google and Facebook and Microsoft and Amazon. And maybe there are folks that have kind of dripped their way into the startup…”
Vince Hankes May 3, 2023 ▶ 25:18 Vince Hankes: Why We Put $300M into OpenAI; Sam Altman's Pitch; Lessons from Josh Kushner | E1009 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 2, 2023 bearish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hanks: Top AI talent remains heavily concentrated in big tech
“If you think about where the best talent in AI is right now, I think it's open AI. And then I think everyone would tell you it is Google and Facebook and Microsoft and Amazon. And maybe there are folks that have kind of dripped their way into the startup ecosy…”
Vince Hankes Jun 2, 2023 ▶ 8:03 20VC: Who Wins the AI Race; Startups or Incumbents & Does Having Proprietary Data Really Matter For Startups Today?
Jun 5, 2023 positive
Opinion
TJ Parker: Amazon is the only big tech company providing real healthcare
“The thing we built and the work we did at Amazon, it's not, it's the only Big tech company that's actually providing healthcare and doing real things in healthcare”
TJ Parker Jun 5, 2023 ▶ 1:07:55 TJ Parker: Building PillPack, The First E-Commerce Pharmacy, to Amazon's $1B Acquisition | E1022 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2023
Assertion Supported
Parker: PillPack achieved ~$200M revenue run rate prior to Amazon acquisition
“One, like, we were now, like, a version of scale, right? Like, a couple hundred million in run rate or something like that.”
TJ Parker Jun 5, 2023 ▶ 59:53 TJ Parker: Building PillPack, The First E-Commerce Pharmacy, to Amazon's $1B Acquisition | E1022 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2023 negative
Assertion Partly supported
TJ Parker: Public pharmacy stocks fell 15% upon Amazon-PillPack acquisition announcement
“All of the companies that traded in pharmacy in the public markets dropped by, like, 15% in, like, three minutes.”
TJ Parker Jun 5, 2023 ▶ 1:06:23 TJ Parker: Building PillPack, The First E-Commerce Pharmacy, to Amazon's $1B Acquisition | E1022 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2023
Disclosure
Parker: PillPack Sold to Amazon After Demanding a $1B Price Floor
“By the time I got to doing the deal with Amazon, like ultimately it was a phone call that was like, if you hit a billion, we're done. And they hit a billion and we were done”
TJ Parker Jun 5, 2023 ▶ 1:04:40 TJ Parker: Building PillPack, The First E-Commerce Pharmacy, to Amazon's $1B Acquisition | E1022 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2023 negative
Opinion
TJ Parker: Amazon's 'earned trust' culture assumes the worst of people
“In hindsight, that is, like, literally the opposite culture, right? It's like, It's kind of assumed the worst until you're proven otherwise.”
TJ Parker Jun 5, 2023 ▶ 21:15 TJ Parker: Building PillPack, The First E-Commerce Pharmacy, to Amazon's $1B Acquisition | E1022 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023 negative
Opinion
Clark: Public perception of Jeff Bezos as a top-down dictator is wrong
“I think the world tends to think of Jeff as like, you know, it's like Moses coming down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments and is like, Shazam, here is what we shall, and it's not like that.”
Dave Clark Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 8:58 Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023 positive
Insight
Clark: Global supply chains need multi-tenant logistics platforms
“What I saw was the power of multi-tenant, you know, the power of you know, multiple companies being able to benefit from the scale of the total, and the rest of the world needs that, you know, the rest of the world needs that for the environment to pull carbon…”
Dave Clark Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 20:39 Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023
Assertion Partly supported
Clark: Amazon doubled its worldwide operating footprint in 18 months during COVID
“COVID, I mean, it had to have been, I mean, I think the when I think about that, 20, 20 and 21 of Amazon, we doubled the size basically of the entire operating footprint for Amazon in like 18 months.”
Dave Clark Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 42:04 Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023 positive
Opinion
Clark: Jeff Bezos excels at context shifting and focusing on critical 10%
“He is one of the best simplifiers, if not the best simplifiers I've ever met, which is he can context shift incredibly well. You have a meeting, you know, this hour on AWS, the next hour on the consumer business, the next hour on labor, and be perfectly in the…”
Dave Clark Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 9:21 Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023 negative
Disclosure
Clark: Amazon was late to ultra-fast shipping due to my hesitation
“Like things that we omitted, like I think we were late getting to the ultra fast shipping piece when we were at Amazon. And I think some of that was, you know, a decent amount of that was probably on me”
Dave Clark Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 12:51 Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023
Insight
Clark: True customer centricity requires sacrificing short-term revenue
“You really only know if you're customer-centric in a very, very hard moment where you're faced with doing something that the customer would like, but it's going to cost you a lot of money that you really, really, really don't want to spend.”
Dave Clark Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 21:57 Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023 negative
Opinion
Clark: Amazon culture evaluates people solely on yesterday's performance
“Amazon's a fairly intense place, you know, and it's a you know, Amazon, I think you kind of, you know, it's very, you know, you're as good as what you did yesterday kind of thing. There's not a lot of longitudinal, you know, stickiness in that way.”
Dave Clark Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 23:49 Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2023
Insight
Clark: Rapidly scaling companies need external hires to teach internal teams
“But in fast growth environments, like I was at Amazon and like we're in it flexed work you often have to intersperse more senior external talent because the business, the people who grew up internally, they haven't, don't have exposure to the business you're b…”
Dave Clark Jul 17, 2023 ▶ 32:26 Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 11, 2023 bullish
Opinion
Lessin: The most obvious AI bets are Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft
“It's like, you want to bet on AI? Bet on Facebook. Bet on Amazon. Bet on Microsoft. It's so obvious.”
Sam Lessin Aug 11, 2023 ▶ 0:05 DEBATE: State of Seed Investing w/ Jason Lemkin, Sam Lessin, Frank Rotman & Harry Stebbings | E1047 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 4, 2023 negative
Insight
Rosenberg: Never hire early sales leaders with big tech pedigree
“Harry, don't hire anybody from Google. Okay. Don't hire anybody that says on their LinkedIn, ex Google, ex Amazon, ex Facebook. Okay. When they put that on their LinkedIn, they're associating themselves with the success of the business. And it is almost imposs…”
Matt Rosenberg Oct 4, 2023 ▶ 14:10 Matt Rosenberg: Why You Should Not Hire Sales Leaders From Big Companies | E1068 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 6, 2023 negative
Disclosure
Rauch: Overweighting big-tech resume credentials was a past hiring mistake
“Sometimes I've placed more weight than I should have on this stellar linked list of awesome brands that you worked at. I did X at, let's just name random companies for the sake of it. Apple, Google, Amazon Netflix. And you look at that and you're like, well, f…”
Guillermo Rauch Oct 6, 2023 ▶ 21:26 Guillermo Rauch: Why Great Companies are Defined by How Many Things They Say No To | E1069 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 10, 2023 positive
Opinion
Amazon has the best sales strategy for co-existing with competitors
“Amazon, they invented the cloud. They invented how to work with companies like us. We were hard for them because we competed with a product of theirs or multiple products of theirs, but yet they make us successful. So it's a hard thing to do, but for them to b…”
Chris Degnan Nov 10, 2023 ▶ 53:21 Chris Degnan: Why You Should Hire a Head of Sales Sooner Than You Think | E1080 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 15, 2023 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Traynor: Amazon could acquire Anthropic and integrate it into AWS EC2
“I could see Amazon just like flat up like buying Anthropic and being like, let's just make this part of the EC two cluster. And that's just a very easy route to market.”
Des Traynor Nov 15, 2023 ▶ 40:10 Des Traynor: How to Survive and Thrive in a World of OpenAI | E1082 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 20, 2023 positive
Disclosure
Eight Sleep uses Amazon's 'disagree and commit' framework for product decisions
“We use the thing that comes from Amazon that is disagree and commit, and I do sometimes in product, right? Not always, but sometimes I decide to disagree, but I raise my hand and I say I disagree and commit, but I'm disagreeing.”
Matteo Franceschetti Nov 20, 2023 ▶ 1:15:45 Matteo Franceschetti: The Ultimate Hiring Playbook: Five Questions to Ask Every New Hire | E1084 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 20, 2023
Assertion Supported
Eight Sleep requires all job candidates to complete homework projects
“Everyone has to do homework. Anyone who joins the company, they have to, we give them a project. They need to work on that at home and they will present to a panel. I don't care if you are the senior executive and you are the CFO of Amazon. If you want to join…”
Matteo Franceschetti Nov 20, 2023 ▶ 48:52 Matteo Franceschetti: The Ultimate Hiring Playbook: Five Questions to Ask Every New Hire | E1084 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 24, 2023 neutral
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2028
Traynor: Amazon could outright acquire Anthropic to integrate into AWS EC2
“I'd be wary of Amazon. So like I could see Amazon just like Flat up like buying Anthropic and being like, let's just make this part of the EC two cluster.”
Des Traynor Nov 24, 2023 ▶ 29:41 The Ultimate AI Roundtable: What Happens Now in AI, Why Google are Vulnerable | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 27, 2023 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Keith Rabois claims Amazon and Apple scaled to 10,000 workers without regressing
“Both Amazon and Apple were able to scale to Call at least 10,000 employees without regressing.”
Keith Rabois Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 28:24 Keith Rabois & Mike Shebat: Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic| E1087 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 8, 2024 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tomaino: Big tech engineers enter crypto in bull markets, leave in bear
“They always come during bull markets and then leave during bear markets.”
Nick Tomaino Jan 8, 2024 ▶ 25:29 Crypto Roundtable with Nick Tomaino & Kyle Samani: US Elections, NFTs, and Trump | E1100 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 12, 2024 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Plantenga: Second-hand market will become the Amazon of resale in 5-10 years
“It's going to be an Amazon, but then for second hand. So it's going to be all the ease and all the, you know, sophistication is going to go into the secondary market as much as it's gone into the first market.”
Thomas Plantenga Feb 12, 2024 ▶ 1:15:11 Thomas Plantenga & Alex Taussig: Vinted CEO's Ultimate Guide to Scaling Marketplaces | E1114 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 14, 2024
What-if
Gonto: Amazon would never have launched AWS without trying the Fire phone
“And if they weren't willing to try Kindle phone, they would never be willing to try AWS.”
Martin Gontovnikas (Gonto) Feb 14, 2024 ▶ 14:26 Martin Gontovnikas (Gonto): The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make When Scaling into Enterprises | E1115 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 21, 2024 positive
Assertion Supported
Williamson: SendGrid and GitLab required opportunity canvases and Amazon-style strategy docs
“There are two that we used at SendGrid and GitLab that I think were essential. One was a one pager called an opportunity canvas, which asked PMs to outline sort of the concept they wanted to build. And the other one, it's like a two to six pager. I think Kevin…”
Scott Williamson Feb 21, 2024 ▶ 16:24 Scott Williamson: Hiring the Best Product People in Five Steps, Why the Best PMs are Writers | E1118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 1, 2024 bullish
Assertion Supported
Amazon's Split-Adjusted $18 IPO Price Equals 7.5 Cents, a 2,200x Return
“By the way, that 18 after all of the stock splits since then is seven and a half cents versus the 170 dollars for Amazon is trading today. So, 2200 times the IPO price.”
Frank Quattrone Mar 1, 2024 ▶ 1:00:21 Frank Quattrone: Lessons from 650 M&A Deals Worth Over $1TRN & Taking Amazon and Cisco Public| E1121 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 1, 2024
Assertion Partly supported
Amazon Stock Trailed Back to $18 Offer Price for a Month Post-IPO
“On the first day, it pops up during the day to 23 and pops right back down to 18. And you could have bought all the Amazon you wanted at 18 for about the first month until they announced earnings.”
Frank Quattrone Mar 1, 2024 ▶ 1:00:07 Frank Quattrone: Lessons from 650 M&A Deals Worth Over $1TRN & Taking Amazon and Cisco Public| E1121 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 1, 2024
Assertion Supported
Barnes & Noble Sued Amazon for False Advertising During IPO Roadshow
“When we took Jeff Bezos out on the road, the first thing that happened was that Barnes and Noble sued him for false advertising because Amazon slogan at the time you may remember was earth's largest bookstore. And Barnes and Noble had no sense of humor about t…”
Frank Quattrone Mar 1, 2024 ▶ 56:31 Frank Quattrone: Lessons from 650 M&A Deals Worth Over $1TRN & Taking Amazon and Cisco Public| E1121 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 29, 2024 negative
Opinion
Mensch: Cloud investments in AI startups resemble round-tripping
“It looks like around flipping. Yes. I don't know about that deal particularly, but it makes sense from both perspectives.”
Arthur Mensch Apr 29, 2024 ▶ 24:23 Arthur Mensch: Open vs Closed - Who Wins and Mistral's Position | E1146 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 20, 2024 neutral
Insight
Nikesh Arora: Technology adoption rarely yields enterprise transformation like Amazon
“Adopting the internet is one thing. Being able to accelerate your business and use that as a competitive advantage is another thing. Every brick and mortar business by now has adopted the internet. But none of them used it to become Amazon.”
Nikesh Arora May 20, 2024 ▶ 32:21 Nikesh Arora: Lessons from $102BN Market Cap & How to Create & Sustain Competitive Advantage | E1155 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 31, 2024
Assertion Partly supported
Lerner: Amazon's original 1996 North Star metric was repeat purchases
“Amazon's North Star from 1996 was repeat purchases.”
Matt Lerner May 31, 2024 ▶ 17:40 Matt Lerner: How to Hire Growth Leaders and Teams and Why in a World of AI | E1159 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 15, 2024 negative
Opinion
Stebbings: Big Tech cloud credits distort AI market valuations
“With the rise of corporate investing with Amazon investing with Google investing with Your largest cloud providers investing. They are no longer purely incentivized by the price of the deal. They're incentivized by the partnership, by the cloud credits. That's…”
Harry Stebbings Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 5:13 Saam Motamedi: Why Series B Won’t Make Money & Why $1M ARR is a BS Milestone for Series A | E1177 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 5, 2024 positive
Assertion Supported
Cahn: Amazon Announced $50 Billion in New Data Centers
“Amazon in the last six months has announced fifty billion dollars of new data centers, right?”
David Cahn Aug 5, 2024 ▶ 16:33 David Cahn: Why Servers, Steel and Power Are the Pillars Powering the Future of AI | E1186 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 7, 2024 bullish
Assertion Supported
Ohanian: NWSL signed a $60M annual media rights deal
“The, we'll pay the league sixty million dollars a year for four years. And that's a medley of Amazon, CBS, ESPN, and then.”
Alexis Ohanian Aug 7, 2024 ▶ 24:55 Alexis Ohanian: The Full P&L Breakdown of the World's Most Valuable Women's Sports Team | E1187 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 26, 2024
Assertion Supported
Alibaba Pitch Framed Company as eBay, Amazon, and PayPal of China
“The story was positioned very simply that, hey, it's the China consumer play, and they are the eBay plus Amazon plus PayPal of China.”
Imran Khan Aug 26, 2024 ▶ 54:50 Imran Khan: Why the IPO Market is Not Closed & Lessons From Taking Snap & Alibaba Public | E1194 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 7, 2024 bullish
Prediction Held up
Kant: Poolside, OpenAI, and Anthropic will rival Big Tech in AI
“What I would like to see and what I think is going to happen is that it's not just Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. It's going to be, you know, an open eye, an anthropic, a poolside, and a set of companies who are able to get that massive escape velocity needed …”
Eiso Kant Oct 7, 2024 ▶ 53:29 Eiso Kant, CTO @Poolside: Raising $600M To Compete in the Race for AGI | E1211 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 7, 2024 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Eiso Kant: NVIDIA, Google, and Amazon Lead AI Hardware Volume
“The reason I mentioned those three specifically is that they are all building extremely large volume of chips. And constantly iterating on faster and better and better generations of chips for training and for inference. They're, for me, the three primary play…”
Eiso Kant Oct 7, 2024 ▶ 37:47 Eiso Kant, CTO @Poolside: Raising $600M To Compete in the Race for AGI | E1211 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 7, 2024
Assertion Supported
Kant: Google relies on Broadcom for TPUs while Amazon works with fabs
“Because while Google has to work with Broadcom to be able to bring TPUs into the world, Amazon is working with the fabs directly.”
Eiso Kant Oct 7, 2024 ▶ 20:13 Eiso Kant, CTO @Poolside: Raising $600M To Compete in the Race for AGI | E1211 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 7, 2024 neutral
Disclosure
Kant: Poolside deliberately excluded Google, Microsoft, and Amazon from $500M round
“If look at our capital raise, our last five hundred million dollar round, you'll see that there's none of the big hyperscalers, Google, Microsoft, you know, Amazon were part of the round.”
Eiso Kant Oct 7, 2024 ▶ 43:43 Eiso Kant, CTO @Poolside: Raising $600M To Compete in the Race for AGI | E1211 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 15, 2024 neutral
Insight
Malik: MBAs make sense primarily for entering structured corporate paths
“I think MBAs make a lot of sense for people who are trying to break into a specific industry. Like if you are trying to break into private equity or you want to be a PM at Amazon or go into McKinsey, then MBAs have like your preset path and you just follow you…”
Raman Malik Nov 15, 2024 ▶ 2:14 Raman Malik: Inside Perplexity’s Growth Machine: What Worked, What Did Not Work | E1226 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 27, 2024 negative
Assertion Contradicted
Hommels: Europe cannot independently launch satellites after Ariane sold capacity
“Yeah, currently we either we get a slot in a SpaceX, yeah, with all the with all the restrictions that there are, or we have Ariane, but Ariane base lastly sold a hundred percent of the defense transport capacity to Amazon. So basically, as Europeans, we are, …”
Klaus Hommels Nov 27, 2024 ▶ 31:13 Klaus Hommels: Why "Portfolios are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy"? | E1231 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 16, 2024 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Hoffman: Nvidia will remain strong despite tech giants building rival chips
“So both, NVIDIA's business will continue to go very strongly because they have an amazing Lead, currently, in amazing chips, and there is you know, massive demand for their chips for doing compute, and many players, Google, Amazon, others, including AMD, are b…”
Reid Hoffman Dec 16, 2024 ▶ 48:04 Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn & Paypal Founder: Trump Administration, Elon Musk and DOGE | E1239 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 8, 2025 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Carvana aims to become the 'Amazon for cars' by distributing third-party vehicles
“I think that we should be selling other people's cars and we want to be Amazon for cars. We want to be able to distribute the cars that consumers want.”
Dan Gill Jan 8, 2025 ▶ 46:59 Dan Gill, CPO @Carvana: The Most Wild Story in Public Markets | E1243 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 24, 2025 neutral
Assertion Contradicted
Morin: Apple purchased 100,000 Trainium AI chips from Amazon
“Let's take Amazon, for instance, with Tranium. Apple just came and said, Hey, we're going to buy a 100,000 of them.”
Steeve Morin Feb 24, 2025 ▶ 40:30 Steeve Morin: Why Google Will Win the AI Arms Race & OpenAI Will Not | E1262 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 24, 2025 negative
Assertion Partly supported
Morin details profit margins across TSMC, Nvidia, and cloud providers
“Nvidia, like a TSMC sells you at 60% margin. Nvidia sells you at, you know, 90% margin. And on top of that, there's Amazon that takes, let's say a 30% margin.”
Steeve Morin Feb 24, 2025 ▶ 15:30 Steeve Morin: Why Google Will Win the AI Arms Race & OpenAI Will Not | E1262 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 24, 2025 negative
Insight
Morin: Cloud compute hoarding creates fake AI GPU scarcity
“So in, in the case of, you know, Amazon or Google, that would be buying reserved compute, which you're not going to use because if you buy it on demand, you will get tremendously ripped off. So that creates this like face scarcity of compute because that peopl…”
Steeve Morin Feb 24, 2025 ▶ 22:35 Steeve Morin: Why Google Will Win the AI Arms Race & OpenAI Will Not | E1262 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 12, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Mar 2035
Östberg: Amazon stock gains will come solely from business growth, not multiple expansion
“I'm still a big fan of Amazon, but of course the valuation of those companies have gone up a lot. So you cannot count on margin expansion or multiple expansion. Sorry. So, so the growth in those stocks will only be, or the value growth in those stocks would ba…”
Niklas Östberg Mar 12, 2025 ▶ 1:06:16 Niklas Östberg, Founder @ Delivery Hero: Competing with Uber and Doordash in a Capital Arms Race · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 24, 2025 bullish
Insight
Feldman: AI inference speed will unlock new industries like broadband did
“If you remember Blockbuster, right. First, I mean, let's look at the history of that. You're exactly right. First, we used to drive to Blockbuster to get a DVD, right, or a video. Then Netflix was mailing them to us, right? And then we got broadband. And there…”
Andrew Feldman Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 17:13 Andrew Feldman, Cerebras Co-Founder and CEO: The AI Chip Wars & The Plan to Break Nvidia's Dominance · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 26, 2025 bearish
Opinion
Green: Crypto resembles the tulip craze due to a lack of commercial utility
“Not bearish on crypto, but, like, I think it reminds me a little bit of the tulip craze that you can't actually use crypto to go buy, like, when you could, if I could go buy a Tesla with crypto, it'd be amazing. If I could go to Amazon and use Bitcoin, it'd be…”
Mitchell Green Mar 26, 2025 ▶ 1:13:34 Mitchell Green, Founder @ Lead Edge Capital: Why Traditional VC is Broken · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 7, 2025 positive
Opinion
Garcia: Amazon is an incredibly analogous business to Carvana
“I think we've studied Amazon like forever as just kind of like, it's an incredibly analogous business to our business. There's a lot of like moving things. There's a lot of very similar problems that you face.”
Ernest Garcia Apr 7, 2025 ▶ 1:02:26 Carvana CEO & Co-Founder, Ernest Garcia: Building a $50B Company, Losing 99% and Coming Back · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 4, 2025
Assertion Partly supported
Big Four Tech Giants Generate $600B in Annual Operating Cash Flow
“You look at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta combined, I mean, they're doing six hundred billion of operating cash flow, just cash coming off the company every single year”
Miles Dieffenbach Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 1:11:57 Miles Dieffenbach: Inside Carnegie Mellon’s $4BN Endowment & The Math Behind DPI, TVPI, Illiquidity · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 25, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Deeter: Amazon, Google, and AMD chipsets are challenging Nvidia's market dominance
“I do think that we're also getting many more hardware approaches and solutions out there. So that it's not as wonderful as NVIDIA is. It's not just an NVIDIA world anymore. And the chip sets from Amazon and Google and AMD and others are becoming quite capable.”
Byron Deeter Aug 25, 2025 ▶ 30:56 BVP Partner, Byron Deeter: The Future of Venture - Why Chanel vs Walmart is BS · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 5, 2025
Insight
Alex Schultz: Tech employees naturally build products for power users
“The general company, in my experience, every company, whether you talk Amazon, whether you talk Google, whether you talk Meta, whether you talk Airbnb, they, as employees, tend to be power users of the product, and they, by nature, optimize for people like the…”
Alex Schultz Sep 5, 2025 ▶ 8:49 20Growth: Meta CMO Alex Schultz on How All Founders Have to Change Their Marketing Playbook in a World of AI | Is AI Plateauing, What it Means if China Wins the AI Race and Why Zuck is a Generational Leader
Sep 18, 2025 bullish
Opinion
O'Driscoll: OpenAI and Anthropic No Longer Need Microsoft or Amazon
“In both these cases, the small company won. They got the money, they got the critical mass, they got the credibility, and now they've pulled away. And neither on top of now open AI needs Microsoft or Amazon at this point. They don't need them for money. They d…”
Rory O’Driscoll Sep 18, 2025 ▶ 49:41 Opendoor CEO, Kaz Nejatian: OpenAI and Oracle, How Can Either Afford to Do This · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 29, 2025 negative
Opinion
Ross: Amazon lacks AI DNA compared to Google, Meta, and Microsoft
“Amazon, I think doesn't have AI DNA. And they, like, if you compare them, so you didn't mention Meta, right? But Meta and Google always had the AI DNA, and Microsoft bought it with OpenAI, but that bought them time. Amazon still doesn't have that DNA, but they…”
Jonathan Ross Sep 29, 2025 ▶ 1:29:14 Groq Founder, Jonathan Ross: OpenAI & Anthropic Will Build Their Own Chips & Will NVIDIA Hit $10TRN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 6, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Feldman: Tech giants achieved chip design success primarily through acquisitions
“Where there's been success, it has frequently been acquired. Apple got into the chip business through buying PA Semi. Amazon got into the chip business through acquiring Annapurna.”
Andrew Feldman Oct 6, 2025 ▶ 49:49 Cerebras CEO, Andrew Feldman on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO & Why NVIDIA’s Worried About Growth · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 30, 2025 negative
Opinion
O'Driscoll: FTC's block of the Amazon-Roomba deal was absurd and destructive
“And the FTC led by Lena Kahn chose to block that deal because I think Benedict Evans said in his place because of an insipid monopoly in the house vacuum cleaner marketplace, very tongue in cheek, right? It was an absurd decision at the time. It only got more …”
Rory O'Driscoll Oct 30, 2025 ▶ 1:09:38 OpenAI Restructuring: Who Wins and Who Loses & Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 30, 2025 bearish
Opinion
Lemkin: Amazon needs to bring Jeff Bezos back as CEO
“They gotta bring Bezos back.”
Jason Lemkin Oct 30, 2025 ▶ 1:17:26 OpenAI Restructuring: Who Wins and Who Loses & Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 6, 2025 bullish
Opinion
Lemkin: Google is underappreciated while Amazon is overappreciated
“I do think that for the moment, Google is underappreciated and Amazon is overappreciated.”
Jason Lemkin Nov 6, 2025 ▶ 48:13 Is a $4.5BN Exit Enough in VC? & Harvey Raises $150M & Why Google is a Buy and Amazon is a Sell · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 10, 2025 positive
What-if
Randle: AWS would be worth $1 trillion if spun out of Amazon
“Which is why it's such an unbelievably large business, probably a trillion dollar business if it was spun out of Amazon.”
Everett Randle Nov 10, 2025 ▶ 25:44 Benchmark's GP, Everett Randle on Why Mega Funds Will Not Produce Good Returns · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 22, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2026
Lemkin: Custom chip competition will not threaten Nvidia's dominance in 2026
“You're a fool to invest against Nvidia for 2026. And I think you are arguably a fool to invest into Amazon in 20, 26 for a simple reason. Just a simple, I didn't say 20, 27 or 20, 28. It is not enough time for all this competition to come online. It is not eno…”
Jason Lemkin Dec 22, 2025 ▶ 57:00 Predictions for 2026: Top Buy & Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win & NVIDIA’s Challenges · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 22, 2025 bearish
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2026
Lemkin: Amazon stock will underperform Big Tech peers in 2026
“Amazon stocks only up two percent this year, if, and I think they're gonna, they will be the underperformer next year, for the same, there's just not enough time”
Jason Lemkin Dec 22, 2025 ▶ 57:56 Predictions for 2026: Top Buy & Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win & NVIDIA’s Challenges · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 22, 2026
Assertion Partly supported
O'Driscoll: All of Amazon's retail gross margin comes from ads
“Amazon ads, which has exploded from, you know, we don't talk about it because it's buried in the bigger business, but all the gross margin now comes from ads. The retail business, It's just an excuse to sell ads that makes all the margin, right? On the retail …”
Rory O'Driscoll Jan 22, 2026 ▶ 53:50 Elon Musk vs Sam Altman | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Pricing? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 14, 2026 positive
Assertion Supported
Midha: Amazon's Initial Deal With Anthropic Was $4 Billion
“And that's why, you know, it resulted in deep compute and capital for equity partnership with Amazon. That was originally four billion dollars.”
Anjney Midha Apr 14, 2026 ▶ 18:46 The Early Days of Anthropic & How 21 of 22 VCs Rejected It | The Four Bottlenecks in AI | Anj Midha · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 14, 2026 bullish
Insight
Midha: Sovereign data needs open cloud market to startups after 15 years
“Because the context, the mission-critical context of those workloads is so important to be run locally that you can't run them on Amazon, AWS, GCP, or Azure, and it's the first time In 15 years that the sort of hyperscaler dominance is up for grabs for startup…”
Anjney Midha Apr 14, 2026 ▶ 12:40 The Early Days of Anthropic & How 21 of 22 VCs Rejected It | The Four Bottlenecks in AI | Anj Midha · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 16, 2026 bearish
Assertion Supported
O'Driscoll: Amazon's $20B Trainium business diverts nearly 10% of Nvidia's revenue
“But all that said, it's still twenty billion of dollars that didn't go to Nvidia that went to Amazon. So it is at the margin meaningful. It's 10% of kind of Nvidia's revenue, a little less than 10%. So it's, and so it's not a mega competitor. It's just an in-h…”
Rory O'Driscoll Apr 16, 2026 ▶ 20:03 SpaceX's Financials Leaked: Is it Worth $2TN | Meta Debuts Muse Spark: Are They Back in the AI Race? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 7, 2026 bullish
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Investors should buy Amazon and sell Microsoft stock
“You buy Amazon and you sell Microsoft, but these are weekly held.”
Rory O'Driscoll May 7, 2026 ▶ 25:33 Anthropic's Raise & What It Means for Potential IPO? Mag7: Google & Amazon Up, Meta & Microsoft Down · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 1, 2026
Assertion Supported
Foody Denies Rumor of $13 Billion Amazon Acquisition Offer
“That one is false.”
Brendan Foody Jun 1, 2026 ▶ 10:11 Mercor CEO: Why Application Layer Companies Have No Moat & The Cost of Hiring AI Researchers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 15, 2026 neutral
Disclosure
Perplexity received $1M in cloud credits at launch
“When we started perplexity, we had like around 200,000 dollars worth of Amazon credits and GCP credits and Azure credits. That almost like together, cumulatively, this was worth like a million dollars in compute credits.”
Aravind Srinivas Jun 15, 2026 ▶ 59:41 Perplexity CEO: Micron Will Be More Valuable Than Meta & How Export Controls Helped Not Hurt China · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 5, 2026 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: OpenAI and Anthropic drive 70% of Google and AWS compute backlogs
“In other words, because they're 70% of the Google Compute backlog, the 70% of the Amazon backlog.”
Rory O'Driscoll Aug 5, 2026 ▶ 46:44 Leo Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness Blows Up | Moonshot AI Raises $3.5B at $35B
Aug 7, 2026
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Frankel: Jeff Bezos Stated He Spent 50% of His Time Hiring
“I had lunch years ago, decades ago, with Jeff Bezos. I was invited to a lunch, and someone smarter than me said, what do you spend your time doing? And he said, 50% of my time is bums on seats. That's never left me.”
David Frankel Aug 7, 2026 ▶ 12:07 The AI Boom Will Create Enormous Roadkill: Who Wins & Loses? | David Frankel
Aug 27, 2026 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: Anthropic and OpenAI exist only due to hyperscaler funding
“The only people capable of financing a state-of-the-art frontier model in the United States of America has been the hyperscalers themselves. The only reason Entropic and OpenAI exist is because Microsoft, Google, and Amazon gave them enough money to play becau…”
Rory O'Driscoll Aug 27, 2026 ▶ 10:06 Anthropic's $30T Assumption & OpenAI Confirms IPO | Why Customer Service & Robotics are Overinflated
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