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Amazon

includes Amazon Web Services, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon Echo, Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Alexa, Amazon Associates, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Basics and 7 more

108 statements across 23 episodes · 56 bullish · 6 bearish · 7 people on the record · first statement Sep 22, 2021 by David Rosenthal · said 1,450 times in 69 episodes since 2020 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by David Rosenthal (735), Ben Gilbert (591), Ben Thompson (24), Steve Ballmer (10), Andrew Marks (10), Packy McCormick (7), David Senra (6), Jason Calacanis (5)

tap a year for its mentions
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013252020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
00251350252020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 39 mentions in 5 episodes 8 per episode
2025 84 mentions in 12 episodes 7 per episode
2024 64 mentions in 9 episodes 7 per episode
2023 100 mentions in 12 episodes 8 per episode
2022 1,104 mentions in 24 episodes 46 per episode
2021 56 mentions in 6 episodes 9 per episode
2020 3 mentions in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Amazon, oldest first

Sep 22, 2021 positive
Opinion
Rockefeller was right that Standard Oil's monopoly benefited consumers
“And he's right. He's totally right. Just like you know, Jeff Bezos would probably say the same thing today or with Amazon or the like.”
David Rosenthal Sep 22, 2021 ▶ 1:17:50 Standard Oil Part I · Acquired
Oct 19, 2021 neutral
Opinion
Gilbert: Spinning out AWS from Amazon would be value-neutral
“So I'm of the opinion that it, it's indifferent with Amazon. Like, I don't think that there's any value that's being like, first of all, we know the size of both businesses. I don't think the, that it's them both being under one umbrella is creating drag for e…”
Ben Gilbert Oct 19, 2021 ▶ 2:32:17 Standard Oil Part II (Extended Cut) · Acquired
Oct 19, 2021 negative
Opinion
Rosenthal: Amazon being AWS's first and best customer is a myth
“I think that's always been a myth, that Amazon is the first and best customer of AWS. Like, I don't think that's actually true.”
David Rosenthal Oct 19, 2021 ▶ 2:32:50 Standard Oil Part II (Extended Cut) · Acquired
Feb 10, 2022 neutral
Insight
Hardware quality is secondary to content selection and ecosystem lock-in
“You could have the best hardware in the world, but You needed the books. Like the content was what really mattered. It didn't matter if the Nook hardware was better than the Kindle or not. Like Amazon had the biggest selection of books, the easiest buying expe…”
David Rosenthal Feb 10, 2022 ▶ 33:36 Peloton - the entire history and strategy behind America's trendiest workout · Acquired
Feb 15, 2022 negative
Insight
Eich: Virtualizing credit cards natively in browsers can deconstruct Amazon
“And if we virtualize the credit card, then we can actually put e-commerce in the browser. We can deconstruct Amazon. Every site, without having to change its merchant JavaScript, which is not going to happen easily, can have an option where you can use somethi…”
Brendan Eich Feb 15, 2022 ▶ 1:21:32 The Browser (with Brendan Eich, Chief Architect of Netscape + Mozilla and CEO of Brave) · Acquired
May 12, 2022 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Rosenthal: Amazon holds 56% of US e-commerce market share
“Amazon has a 56% market share of U.S. E-commerce.”
David Rosenthal May 12, 2022 ▶ 32:21 Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity · Acquired
May 12, 2022 bullish
Prediction Held up
Rosenthal: Amazon will soon pass Walmart in total revenue
“The only larger one being Walmart, which Amazon will almost assuredly pass very soon.”
David Rosenthal May 12, 2022 ▶ 29:41 Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity · Acquired
Jun 20, 2022 positive
Insight
Rosenthal: Growth runway duration matters far more than annual growth rate
“It's not your growth rate in any given year that matters. Frankly, that doesn't matter at all. what matters is how many years of growth do you have left? Like that is the ultimate question. And in the case of Amazon, in the case of Apple, if you have decades …”
David Rosenthal Jun 20, 2022 ▶ 20:49 The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories · Acquired
Jun 20, 2022 positive
What-if
Gilbert: Amazon could not have executed its strategy without public long-term commitment
“There is zero chance that they would have been able to execute the strategy that they did if it weren't for their ability to be loud and proud about their intentions.”
Ben Gilbert Jun 20, 2022 ▶ 1:04:11 The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories · Acquired
Jun 20, 2022 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gilbert: AWS is the reason Amazon became profitable
“That's the reason that Amazon became a profitable business.”
Ben Gilbert Jun 20, 2022 ▶ 49:17 The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories · Acquired
Jul 19, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Walmart reached Washington in 1993, one year before Amazon was founded
“The first store opened in Washington in 1993 and Amazon was founded in 1994.”
Ben Gilbert Jul 19, 2022 ▶ 1:52:35 Walmart · Acquired
Jul 19, 2022 positive
Assertion Partly supported
US e-commerce retailers two through nine combined trail Amazon by 50%
“If you add up two through nine in e-commerce, and Walmart is second place to Amazon, it is still not equivalent to Amazon's total sales in a year. And in fact, I think it's something like two through nine added together are still 50% shy of Amazon's e-commerce…”
Ben Gilbert Jul 19, 2022 ▶ 1:59:57 Walmart · Acquired
Jul 19, 2022 positive
Insight
Rosenthal: Walmart connects the Rockefeller industrial era to Amazon's tech era
“Sam and the Walmart story is like the bridge between the business America that was John Rockefeller and Standard Oil and Amazon and Jeff Bezos. Like, this is the connective bridge between those two realities.”
David Rosenthal Jul 19, 2022 ▶ 8:56 Walmart · Acquired
Jul 19, 2022 bearish
Opinion
Walmart, not Amazon, was the primary cause of Sears and Kmart's collapse
“And I thought like, oh, well, duh, Amazon killed them all. No, Walmart killed them. There's no way that Kmart or God forbid Sears at that point could compete against Walmart.”
David Rosenthal Jul 19, 2022 ▶ 1:54:27 Walmart · Acquired
Jul 19, 2022 bullish
Prediction Held up
Gilbert: Amazon will inevitably surpass Walmart in total global revenue
“If you look at the gap that Amazon closed in total revenue since the time they were founded to Walmart, they're going to catch them. No doubt about it.”
Ben Gilbert Jul 19, 2022 ▶ 2:58:00 Walmart · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Contradicted
Amazon surpassed eBay in market cap in 2007 as stock tripled
“It would be a long journey, but Amazon's stock price tripled in 2007, while eBay's fell by over 50%. And during that year, for the first time since, like, eBay's IPO, Amazon finally passes eBay in market cap.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:51:45 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Opinion
Gilbert: Amazon's internal entrepreneurship was Seattle startup scene's biggest impediment
“The biggest impediment To the Seattle startup ecosystem was the fact that Amazon facilitated entrepreneurship over and over and over again for people at all stages in their career with all levels of ambition and is really, really impressive, but doesn't really…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:02:17 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Opinion
Gilbert: Amazon is the most successful scale innovator in history
“It is the most successful scale innovator in the world that has ever existed.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:01:41 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Gilbert: Amazon Tripled Revenue in 1999 to $1.8B
“I think they're about tripling revenue, which to be clear in 99 is like six hundred million to 1.8 billion.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:37:15 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon ran Target's website and announced deal on 9/11
“So they do it with Target. They literally ran Target's website for years, which ominously, they announced that deal on September 11th, 2001.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:42:09 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Insight
Gilbert: Amazon Prime Scale Lets It Amortize Fixed-Cost Customer Experience Beyond Competitors
“And what he's describing is the most perfect, vivid example of scale economies, where once they get all these customers, and once they acquire them all to prime, so they are all loyal, subscribed, guaranteed to shop here customers, then you can amortize every …”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:22:23 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Assertion Supported
eBay executives pitched Bezos on outsourcing Amazon's marketplace to eBay
“In the fall of 2000, Meg Whitman and Jeff Jordan fly up to Seattle and they pitch Bezos on the opposite idea. EBay takes over the failed Amazon auctions and all of third party sellings.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:42:54 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Amazon quickly became Oracle's largest database instance ever by traffic
“One thing they did do right in the infrastructure though, because by the way, very quickly they became Oracle's largest ever instance by traffic. The Oracle people were like, oh my god, we can't help you. No one else is seeing this many reads or writes per sec…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:24:28 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Only two major distributors held US physical book inventory
“Two, there are only two major actual distributors of physical books in America. There are many publishers, but distributors who actually, like, have the inventory, the books. Ingram and Baker and Taylor.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 44:24 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Insight
Gilbert: Amazon brute-forced its way to success through continuous trial and error
“Was amazon.com was the original idea. And then everything else was a brute force algorithm for finding your way through a maze where it's just like, try this pathway. Oh crap. Nope. Backup, backup, backup, backup, refine, turn. Amazon brute force their way to …”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:40:36 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Rosenthal: Amazon raised $54M at $438M valuation in May 1997 IPO
“They price on May 1519 97. They raised fifty four million dollars at a four hundred and thirty eight million dollar market cap.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:56:16 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Gilbert: Shel Kaphan built Obidos to maintain shopping carts without cookies
“And so Shell had to basically invent this way for users to maintain favorited items or a shopping cart without leaving a cookie. And so how do you do that without cookies or sessions? He invented this really insane engine. It's basically a rendering engine cal…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:15:27 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
What-if
Without Amazon outbidding eBay for Accept.com, PayPal might not exist
“If that had gone otherwise, I don't know about PayPal. Like, there's probably no PayPal. There might not be a PayPal mafia.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:19:54 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Insight
Gilbert: Overcoming internal fiefdoms for cannibalistic strategies requires founder leadership
“They have an immediate organizational design problem where a whole bunch of people are incentivized and comped against their fiefdom. And what you've just done is you've created a brand new business strategy that tells people that the greater good is more impo…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:48:36 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Insight
Gilbert: Amazon was a philosophical line, strategic squiggly line, tactical random dots
“If you're gonna look at Amazon as a straight line, it was a philosophical straight line. It was a strategically squiggly line, but it was a tactically random set of dots that there was just a fact-finding algorithm going to figure out.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:04:41 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Amazon employs 1.6 million people, mostly in logistics
“I mean, the company employs 1.6 million people, most of which do this.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:09:16 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Contradicted
Gilbert: Amazon spent zero marketing dollars in its first year post-launch
“In fact, I think there's a stat, the entire first year after the public launch, they spent zero marketing dollars, and it was all word of mouth at inbound media inquiries because what they were doing was so novel and so useful to the mass market consumer.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:19:48 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Amazon reached $1.1B revenue and $5M GAAP net income in Q4 2001
“In Q four of 2001, they do 1.1 billion of revenue, fifty nine million of operating income, thirty five million of pro forma Adjusted net income, excluding stock-based comp and other, you know, non-cash expenses, which Wall Street's like, yeah, yeah, blah, blah…”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:50:02 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Amazon grew revenue 15x year-over-year before going public
“They had this product market fit, an unbelievable 15 X year-over-year growth in revenue dollars, not like usage, revenue, and customer retention was increasing.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:41:00 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon's advertising business is at a $30B to $40B run rate
“At a certain point, they're gonna have to break out advertising, you know, it's 30, forty billion dollar run rate. Business at this point.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:00:46 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: The domain Relentless.com still redirects to Amazon
“Relentless.com, which still goes to Amazon.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:08:06 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Barnes & Noble and Borders held under 12% market share each
“Also worth noting, Barnes and Noble and Borders each only had less than 12% of the retail market each. So it's not like there was somebody who already had 80% market share that you had to go fight.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 47:12 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Insight
Gilbert: Amazon Holds A Structural Real Estate Cost Advantage Over Traditional Retail
“Stores have to store all of their inventory, or a lot of their inventory, in very expensive real estate. Amazon totally does not.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:50:13 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
First CFO Joy Covey co-architected Amazon's profit-reinvestment growth strategy
“And of course, as we talk about Amazon, really the playbook of how they got big, we'll talk a lot about Them reinvesting every single dollar of profit they had to plow it back in to grow the business. That is, of course, attributable to Jeff, but is in large p…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:38:37 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
What-if
Gilbert: Amazon would not exist today without first hire Shel Kaphan
“I don't think Amazon would exist today if it weren't for Shell, and I think that's sort of a widely acknowledged thing among the early team, including Jeff”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:11:46 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Amazon chose Oracle because Sybase failed to return Shel Kaphan's calls
“It was a bake-off between two, and Shell basically was like, okay, cool, what database software am I going to procure? And the choices were Sybase and Oracle, and Sybase did not return Shell's call, and so he chose Oracle.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:12:34 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Insight
Gilbert: Bezos Prioritizes Lifetime Margin Dollars Over Percentage Gross Margin
“Jeff is absolutely laser focused on not gross margin percentage, but the absolute dollar amount of margin dollars over a full customer lifetime that you can sort of get.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:24:10 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: 1992 Supreme Court ruling exempted out-of-state retailers from sales tax
“In 1992, the Supreme Court has ruled on a decision that retail companies do not have to collect sales tax in states where they don't have physical presence, like operations.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:05:05 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon bought Accept.com primarily to block eBay from payments
“Amazon steals the deal and acquires accept.com mostly so that eBay doesn't get it.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:19:32 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Rosenthal: Amazon did $500K in revenue in its first six months
“So that first half year that the site is live to the public, they do half a million dollars in revenue in six months with the 200,000 dollars in friends and family funding.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:22:47 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Insight
Gilbert: Superior software cannot unseat an established marketplace network effect
“When you have the network effect of more buyers attracting more sellers and more sellers attracting more buyers like eBay had, and they were a couple years ahead, it was just already in full swing. And even if you have a more technically superior interface.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:20:33 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon grew revenue from $500K in 1995 to $15.7M in 1996
“Remember they did half a million in revenue for the half year of 1995 that they were live. They do 15.7 million in revenue in 1996.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:31:30 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Insight
Gilbert: Amazon retail has two-sided marketplace power but no demand-side network effects
“Interestingly, there are no supply to supply side or demand to demand side network economies. The fact that you're an Amazon customer and Amazon, Amazon customer, I don't care. I don't benefit from that at all.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:37:39 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Bezos Set Goal for Amazon Profitability by Q4 2001
“So he announces internal company goal that he announces to the whole company, part of the get our house in order mantra that they will be profitable by the fourth quarter of 2001.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:40:03 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gilbert: Pre-IPO Amazon struggled recruiting engineers who viewed bookstores as boring
“So they actually had a recruiting problem where talented engineers who were like, oh my god, this is a really interesting next generation technology that I want to build on, are much more interested in working at other companies who are building web applicatio…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:41:37 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon 10xed revenue in 1997 to nearly $150M
“For the full year of 1997, they do just a hair under a 150 million dollars in revenue. So that's 10 X the year before.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:58:19 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Opinion
Gilbert: Amazon in its first decade was just Jeff Bezos at scale
“Even though it's called Amazon, at least for a very long time, call it its first decade, it really is just Jeff Bezos at scale.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 28:09 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Audible holds 40%+ share of the growing $5B audiobook industry
“Right after the Kindle launch, they buy Audible. Amazon buys Audible for three hundred million dollars. Today, Audible has a 40 plus percent market share of audiobooks, which is a five billion dollar industry growing 25%.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:13:28 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: 57% of Amazon sales come from third-party sellers
“57% of Amazon sales right now are from third-party sellers, where Amazon's just collecting margin dollars and holding no inventory.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:34:19 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Insight
Rosenthal: Capitalized downturns are the best times to build moats
“Obviously you gotta be smart. You gotta be right. You know, you gotta have managed your company in a way that you have access to capital during those times, but that's the best time to build moats.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:09:46 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Amazon Maintained Gross Margin Profitability and Solid Unit Economics
“Amazon always was gross margin profitable. They always had solid unit economics, but they would choose to super aggressively reinvest in something”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:42:47 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon capitalized initially with $200k from Bezos, Kaphan, and parents
“Jeff and Mackenzie had done great at D Shaw. So they put in 95,000 dollars to start. Shell himself puts in 5000 dollars. This takes me back to the Walmart episode and gosh, so smart of like having your employees Actually invest dollars in the business. Jeff's …”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:10:27 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon reached 50 states and 45 countries within four weeks
“So we're just four weeks after launch here. They have sold books to people in all 50 states in the country and 45 countries around the world there. By the end of those two weeks, they are doing 20,000 in sales a week on books.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:22:08 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
CFOs Joy Covey and Warren Jenson saved Amazon with $2B debt raise
“Joy first. And then Warren too, they orchestrate raising about two billion dollars in convertible debt on the debt markets, which totally saves Amazon skin.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:31:23 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Partly supported
Rosenthal: Amazon operates 185 fulfillment centers and 96 airplanes globally
“Today, Amazon has a 185 fulfillment centers around the world. They have 96 airplanes on their own airline. They have a maritime company. They have 200,000 delivery vans. They've got another 100,000 electric delivery vans. On order.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:09:00 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Harry Potter's universal appeal broke early Amazon recommendation algorithms
“Harry Potter, by the way, broke a lot of Amazon's algorithms. I was listening to a couple interviews with early engineers who were saying like the, you may also like, or people who like this also like, basically everyone liked Harry Potter. And so they would h…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:19:37 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Amazon held over $2B in balance-sheet debt around 2000
“I mean, at this point, they've got over two billion of debt on the balance sheet. I think it actually increased from 2000 to 2001 and 2001 to 2002.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:43:50 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022
Assertion Supported
Bezos took nearly a year and 60 meetings to raise Amazon's first $1M
“Jeff ended up taking the better part of a year to raise one measly million dollars over 60 meetings ultimately from 22 different investors to sell 20% of the company in order to raise that first million.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 57:49 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Amazon followed John Malone's playbook of maximizing cash while minimizing profit
“When you sort of look at their tax strategy, the fact that they're generating all this free cash flow, but somehow never reporting a gap profit, and they're never paying corporate income tax because they have no corporate income, and yet somehow they're a tril…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:07:47 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Gilbert: Amazon's market cap dropped from $1.9T peak to $1.0T
“Amazon was a 1.9 trillion dollar company, and today is a one trillion dollar company.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:16:02 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon pitched running Walmart's website, but Walmart declined
“They even go pitch the idea to Walmart to do the same thing with Walmart. Walmart is they're like, Yeah. No, thanks guys. No, nice try.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:42:23 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Kleiner Perkins led Amazon's $8M Series A at $60M post-money
“Amazon ends up. Choosing Kleiner to lead their Series A, eight million dollars at a sixty million dollar post money valuation.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 1:33:47 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: $1,800 invested in Amazon's IPO grew to $2.6M by 2022
“If you bought a hundred shares for, call it, 1800 dollars of total investment, today you'd have 2.6 million dollars and you would have made 1500 X.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 4:13:46 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Insight
Gilbert: Amazon counter-positioned against brick-and-mortar retail distribution models
“There's counter-positioning in the era that we're talking about, Barnes & Noble, and subsequently Walmart, because those folks would have to invest so much and did, well Walmart did at least, to completely reinvent the way that they do distribution and all the…”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:38:52 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Amazon makes over $20B per year from Prime subscriptions
“I think they do make over twenty billion dollars in revenue per year on just Prime subscriptions.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 3:30:51 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Walmart's 1998 Amazon trade-secret lawsuit settled with no damages
“In late 1998, Walmart sues Amazon for trying to steal trade secrets. The case settles with no damages, but there was damage. It happened. That DNA came right out of Walmart and right into Amazon.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:06:59 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Rosenthal: Tom Alberg Was Amazon's Longest-Serving Board Member After Bezos
“Tom was the longest serving Amazon board member other than Jeff himself. I believe, 23 years was the lead independent director and had a huge impact on the company”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 0:53 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 16, 2022 positive
Assertion Contradicted
Rosenthal: A9 search pushed Amazon to adopt a microservices architecture
“The other incredibly impactful thing that comes out of A-Nine and search and improving search on DM, Amazon.com website is that really is one of the catalysts that pushes the company to transition from a monolith software architecture to microservices, indepen…”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 2:59:59 Amazon.com · Acquired
Aug 30, 2022 bearish
Insight
Howard Marks: Computers cannot pick the next Amazon or Steve Jobs
“I always say that I don't think that a computer can sit down with five business plans and figure out which one is Amazon in advance, or meet five CEOs and know which one is Steve Jobs.”
Howard Marks Aug 30, 2022 ▶ 59:48 Howard Marks & Andrew Marks: Something of Value · Acquired
Aug 30, 2022 positive
Opinion
Andrew Marks: Amazon proves great founders trump static business models
“And so he sort of talks about the primacy of business model over management, but I think Amazon's a great example of the opposite because You could have never dreamed that if you owned Amazon when the story was about growing as a retailer, you could have never…”
Andrew Marks Aug 30, 2022 ▶ 13:36 Howard Marks & Andrew Marks: Something of Value · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Massive AWS data center investments drove Amazon free cash flow negative
“They just invested so much in building out new data centers for AWS, they actually took Amazon cash flow negative. Their free cash flow is massively negative over the last 12 months because of these continued, unbelievably large investments.”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 2:21:40 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 positive
Insight
Gilbert: Targeting startups as a beachhead was key to AWS's success
“This is probably one of the biggest keys to success or sort of playbook Themes for why AWS became successful. They realized how perfect this was for startups. They realized how hard it would be for large enterprises to just wholesale move over. They realized t…”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 1:22:29 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Migrating to Linux and HP servers saved Amazon from bankruptcy
“I mean, in 2000, they almost went out of business because they were so tight on cash and they were spending so much on infrastructure that this sort of moved to the open source ecosystem and doing a massive rewrite of all of Amazon.com to run on Linux and run …”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 17:49 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Only eight people attended Amazon's 2002 AWS launch conference
“They hold a conference for developers in 2002. A total of eight people attend the conference. They announced to the world the launch of this new division within Amazon. That is called Amazon Web Services.”
David Rosenthal Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 27:54 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 negative
Insight
Gilbert: Two-pizza teams caused AWS to launch a fragmented alphabet soup
“The other thing where they're sort of a victim of their own success is the Amazon two pizza team thing led them to launch all these different services. Rather than having a cohesive product strategy, AWS has kind of been alphabet soup.”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 2:04:41 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: AWS was built to scale, not to monetize excess seasonal capacity
“The excess capacity story is a myth. It was never a matter of selling excess capacity. Actually, within two months after launch, AWS would have already burned through the excess amazon.com capacity. Amazon Web Services was always considered a business by itsel…”
David Rosenthal Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 19:08 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 neutral
Insight
Gilbert: Amazon's $1.5T valuation implies $100B in annual cash flow
“If you're worth 1.5 trillion dollars, it does suppose that you're spitting off like a hundred billion dollars a year or somewhere on that order of cash, which we've never seen them do or come close to doing.”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 2:37:42 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Andy Jassy's 2003 AWS vision document requested hiring 57 people
“In the document, there is an ask, a proposal to hire 57 new people to go pursue this initiative.”
David Rosenthal Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 59:59 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: AWS has over $100 billion in contracted revenue backlog
“That backlog of committed contractual signed revenue is over one hundred billion dollars.”
David Rosenthal Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 1:52:53 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Early Amazon enforced a two-month holiday code freeze
“So much so that for the first, at least five years of the business, there was a rule in November and December that you could not commit new code to production.”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 14:03 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 positive
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: AWS operating profit exceeds Amazon retail despite being 15% of revenue
“AWS's revenue is only about 15% the size of Amazon's massive retail business, but their profits, or the operating income, to be specific, from AWS Are in total the same, if not more than their e-commerce store. I think it's the case that every year since 2015,…”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 2:57 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 neutral
Assertion Contradicted
Rosenthal: Amazon originally targeted 20% to 40% margins for AWS
“Amazon targeted gross margins and operating margins for AWS in the 20 to 40% range.”
David Rosenthal Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 1:34:50 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 bullish
Opinion
Gilbert: Amazon's 100% ownership of AWS represents history's greatest venture return
“He just gets capital allocation, and that's why I think Amazon is effectively the highest performing venture returns in history. AWS is a venture bet in their portfolio that they own 100% of.”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 2:32:47 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 bullish
Insight
Gilbert: Data gravity gives AWS an ML moat over Google's superior models
“What's becoming clearer to me is the machine learning capabilities that Amazon has need to be good, but they actually don't need to be as good as Google's. Because here's sort of the strategy with machine learning. You're gonna use whatever ML is available wit…”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 2:00:44 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: As of 2022, AWS was on an $80B annualized revenue run rate
“AWS today is on an. Eighty billion dollar revenue run rate eight zero.”
David Rosenthal Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 1:52:16 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Rosenthal: Bezos created the shadow role to save Andy Jassy from layoffs
“And then, 2002 1001 dot com crash. Amazon acts as the whole marketing department. Cause you know, we're not doing ads anymore. We gotta get profitable. And Jassy was gonna get laid off with the whole department, but Jeff liked him. And so Jeff said, I'm gonna …”
David Rosenthal Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 37:48 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google hold 40%, 22%, and 10% cloud share
“Amazon's got 35, maybe 40%. Microsoft's got 20 to 22%. Google's somewhere around 10%.”
Ben Gilbert Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 1:40:39 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 6, 2022
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Amazon's engineering team in Cape Town built the original EC2
“That becomes EC two. It's that team in South Africa that builds EC two.”
David Rosenthal Sep 6, 2022 ▶ 1:12:36 Amazon Web Services · Acquired
Sep 28, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
John Doerr won deals personally before delegating board seats to junior partners
“He aggressively came in to try and court the deal, win the deal, and then he would try and pass off the board seat to a junior partner. And Jeff, of course, didn't let that happen, but many entrepreneurs did.”
David Rosenthal Sep 28, 2022 ▶ 12:07 Benchmark Part I · Acquired
Oct 4, 2022 positive
Opinion
Calacanis: Bezos dunked on Sanders and Warren via Amazon's internal policies
“He took the platform that you could never actually enact. And he enacted it inside of Amazon. If it's not perfectly clear what just happened, literally he's dunking on you. You wanted free college and couldn't get it done, he gave it to Amazon employees. You w…”
Jason Calacanis Oct 4, 2022 ▶ 54:45 ACQ Sessions: Jason Calacanis · Acquired
Dec 19, 2022 bullish
Opinion
Walmart single-handedly created the modern retail wave that Amazon digitized
“Walmart was really the company that single-handedly created the wave of the modern store period, which then Amazon could take digital.”
Ben Gilbert Dec 19, 2022 ▶ 31:58 Holiday Special 2022 · Acquired
Mar 29, 2023 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Acquired's LVMH Episode Outperformed Its Amazon Episode by 40,000 Listeners
“It's our number one episode by a huge margin. 40,000 more people have listened to that episode than the next highest, which was amazon.com.”
Ben Gilbert Mar 29, 2023 ▶ 39:55 Sessions: David Senra (Founders Podcast) · Acquired
Aug 21, 2023 positive
Assertion Supported
A 2001 coffee with Jim Sinegal inspired Amazon's core low-price philosophy
“Jeff has this coffee with Jim, and Jim explains this philosophy to Jeff. Jeff comes back to Amazon HQ the next day and is like, I'm reversing the policy, and says exactly what you just said. There are two types of companies in this world. Companies that work h…”
David Rosenthal Aug 21, 2023 ▶ 1:29:30 Costco (Audio) · Acquired
Aug 21, 2023 neutral
Assertion Supported
Costco is the third-largest retailer in the US behind Amazon and Walmart
“And you're the third biggest player in the largest market, you know, America, behind Amazon and Walmart.”
Ben Gilbert Aug 21, 2023 ▶ 2:02:22 Costco (Audio) · Acquired
Aug 21, 2023 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Costco operates at 10% to 11% overhead compared to Amazon's roughly 30%
“Costco runs at 10, 11% overhead, and Amazon runs closer to, like, 30% overhead”
Ben Gilbert Aug 21, 2023 ▶ 2:12:50 Costco (Audio) · Acquired
Nov 27, 2023 neutral
Assertion Supported
Amazon and JPMorgan Chase control three of five payment network parties
“JPMorgan Chase is the merchant bank and JPMorgan Chase is one of the largest issuing banks for cards in the world, and so the Amazon Chase credit card that I have and I do all my shopping on Amazon with and all my shopping at Whole Foods with is able to give m…”
David Rosenthal Nov 27, 2023 ▶ 2:38:48 Visa (Audio) · Acquired
Feb 20, 2024 bullish
Insight
Hermès operates an intentionally rate-limited inverse Amazon flywheel.
“Hermes has this incredible unassailable flywheel, but it operates in the exact opposite way of An Amazon flywheel. It's not about maximizing the cycles. It's slowing. It's minimizing. It's a intentionally rate-limited flywheel, and it all works together.”
David Rosenthal Feb 20, 2024 ▶ 2:54:15 Hermès (Audio) · Acquired
Jul 22, 2024 neutral
Assertion Contradicted
Rosenthal: Microsoft pulled Brian Valentine from Exchange to rescue Vista
“Taking Brian Valentine off of Exchange. Exchange was freaking killing it in the enterprise. And he goes and spends two years getting Vista out the door and then goes to Amazon.”
David Rosenthal Jul 22, 2024 ▶ 2:35:34 Microsoft Volume II: The Complete History and Strategy of the Ballmer Years (Audio) · Acquired
Oct 28, 2024 neutral
Insight
Meta Requires Tight Engineering Coupling Unlike Amazon's Decoupled API Interfaces
“Amazon uses interface so teams don't have to talk to each other. At Meta, they require incredibly tight communication. It's a very different organizational philosophy where they're like, no, no, no, not only do we not have external customers, we want this insa…”
Ben Gilbert Oct 28, 2024 ▶ 6:11:24 Meta (Audio) · Acquired
Nov 18, 2024 bullish
Insight
Gilbert: Scaled consumer platforms can easily attach high-margin advertising businesses
“I mean, it's the Amazon play, right? Of once you reach scale and you have enough customer eyeballs, You can staple on a near hundred percent margin advertising business for free.”
Ben Gilbert Nov 18, 2024 ▶ 1:19:28 IKEA (Audio) · Acquired
Jun 30, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Jeff Dean built Google's first ad test using Amazon affiliate links
“Jeff Dean codes it up so that dynamically, as users are searching, if there's a query that is related at all to Any book in the Amazon library catalog, Google will dynamically generate a text ad saying, go buy this book at Amazon, insert an Amazon affiliate li…”
David Rosenthal Jun 30, 2025 ▶ 1:29:24 Google Part I: Origins of Search. How the Best Business in Human History Happened (Audio) · Acquired
Jul 16, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Dimon met with Jeff Bezos about becoming Amazon president
“I went to visit Jeff Bezos, who was looking for a president at the time. He and I hit it off. We've been friends ever since. He's an exceptional human being.”
Jamie Dimon Jul 16, 2025 ▶ 10:19 The Jamie Dimon Interview: How JP Morgan Became an $800 Billion Bank · Acquired
Aug 26, 2025 bearish
Opinion
Google's Historically Flawed Strategy Left Cloud Far Behind Amazon and Microsoft
“And Google had the wrong strategy in cloud for many years, and as a result, that's why their cloud business is way behind Amazon and Microsoft.”
David Rosenthal Aug 26, 2025 ▶ 3:30:30 Google Part II: Alphabet (Audio) · Acquired
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