Mighty Amazon

theodp writes "Fortune reports that the patent-pending practice of selling partners' used and new goods next to Amazon's own was CEO Jeff Bezos' response to the emerging threat of eBay. Seeing an opportunity to overtake the online auctioneer as well as a way to slow the need to add warehouse capacity, Bezos 'bet big and put hundreds of his best people on it.' While Bezos' decision caused a lot of discomfort at the time, including the Authors Guild protest and the subsequent e-mail campaign in Amazon's defense, today almost 20% of the e-tailer's unit volume is sold through others, yielding revenue that is almost pure profit."

Comments

Best people on it?

[nolife]

Bezos 'bet big and put hundreds of his best people on it.'

How can one person honestly work close enough with thousands of people that he knows each and every one of them, and then be able to pick the "best hundreds" out from the total pool. This project may have been a top priority for Amazon but attempting to show how high with a statement like the above proves nothing.

This year, my lawn has been such a priority for me that I have spent 5 times the amount of time and 100 times as money on it then I did last year. This efort has really paid off as this year my lawn and trees are greener, fuller, and look great.

What that really means is:
Last year we did not have any rain so nothing was growing and I did not spend more then 2 hours a month cutting the brown grass. All I had to buy was weed wacker line for $10. This year it has been raining a lot, my lawn is growing about 4 inches a week because of the rain and I have to cut it more often. I also had to spend a $1000 on a tractor because my old POS mower finally died.

Okay, mod as troll... I just thought that original statement was bogus.