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Amazon.com Nears 10-Year Anniversary

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stuff-to-read dept.

mopslik writes "Amazon.com is nearing its 10-year anniversary. "Soon after Amazon.com Inc. debuted 10 years ago, Jeff Bezos and his handful of employees spent late summer nights packing books in a tiny warehouse, scrambling to ship a growing gush of orders. Today, the man who has grown accustomed to being hailed the king of Internet commerce runs a global powerhouse that did nearly $7 billion in sales last year, dealing in everything from banjo cases to wild boar baby back ribs." Although Bezos has drawn some ire from his collection of patents, there's no arguing that his company is one of the most successful online sites today."

11 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Will be interesting to see outcome of his patents by team99parody · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's interesting to see how Amazon's playing the patent game. In some ways it looks like they recgonise it's an absurd game and are taking out all these borderline patents that wouldd be a great case study as to why patent reform is needed.

    If he does take that approch, he could be seen as a great hero to your average /. guy, with quite a bit of positive PR. Wonder if this segment of the market matters enough for him to do this.

  2. Amazon and patents by daniil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, the one-click patent cited in the GNU link was really not so obvious after all. Even Tim O'Reilly, the man that offered $10,000 rewards for finding prior art to this, has later admitted this.

    --
    Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
  3. What a cinderella story by tankd0g · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If cinderella had an unlimited advertising budget and blind faith investors to enable her to coast on zero profit for half a decade.

  4. Amazon versus Yahoo board posters by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 5, Interesting
    In the late 90s, I was one of those investing in Amazon stock. I used to read the Yahoo investment message board for Amazon, and I remember all those posters who were absolutely sure Amazon was going down. They used to post detailed diatribes about profit and loss estimates, and how Amazon was fooling everyone with their accounting, and that their end was going to be soon and hard.

    Yeah, yeah, I know, you get those types on every Yahoo stock board, and some of them are just shorts trying to scare people away. But the meme on the Amazon board was that they were losing money on every sale...but making it up in volume! Hardy har har. These people were absolutely convinced that Amazon would never succeed at their profit margins. And indded, Amazon was losing money every quarter.

    But Jeff Bezos kept saying that the important thing was growth and market share and mind share, and that to go to profitability too soon would be a mistake. The Yahooligans roundly laughed at Bezos for saying stuff like that. But in the end, Bezos pulled it off. Amazon survived the dot-bomb, and is a solid company. But I'll bet anything if I went to the Yahoo board today (I'm no longer an investor in them, so I don't check), they will still be saying that Amazon's end is nigh.

    Shows you the value of ignorning conventional wisdom if you have a new idea and a strong vision of how to implemenent the idea in the long term.

    1. Re:Amazon versus Yahoo board posters by MsWillow · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Jeff has always been one darned smart cookie. Back when I worked with him at Fitel, he told me of how he once wrote a program to convert / translate the tape counter on several different VCRs, so that the American ex-pat community could figure out where on the tape their favorite tv show was located. Clever, and non-obvious.

      I knew darned well he'd make money. He used to talk US Tax law at lunch, and how the IRS gives a company X years before they must show a profit. He used that time to build up his company, to be strong enough to compete.

      He's good, and a decent dude, too, tho Ellie may not agree - Ellie usually lost at the lunch tab games played with Jeff and I :) Heck, Jeff even came to my wedding in 1988 - a Wiccan handfasting, back before Wicca really took off.

      Good guy, Jeff. Hopefully, he learned from Graciella how to attract the best and brightest employees, and how NOT to treat them. Fitel was a bear of a place to work. I could not have survived without Jeff and his then-gf Annette St. Onge.

      --

      Lemon curry?
  5. Spammers. by sadtrev · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of my staff bought a book from them a year ago from a work account. Since then they've been sending me unsolicited offers for things I have no intention of buying.

    Their e-mail contains no return or unsubscribe link. I believe that here in the UK that is illegal. I have struggled even to find a phone number or postal address on their website to send a cease-and-desist letter.

    Yes, they're big and successful but their behaviour bears all the hallmarks of spammers.

  6. And then there will be.... by BorisSkratchunkov · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ....Googlezon! Amazon appears to generally be off in a good direction, considering that it's still fairly young. It also has an interesting selection, including oddities such as a 1,082 volume classics collection that would be practically impossible to read in a lifetime. I just hope that they don't go too patent-crazy...they're supposed to be a book seller, not the monstrosity of a magnate! Maybe they will end up as some sort of mega-corporation in a technnology-dominated future. Frobozz Magic Book Company anyone?

  7. Re:That's the problem with the patent game by TheBrownShow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For the most part these patents only exist to create some sort of nuclear stalemate - where your competitors are too afraid to sue you since it's certain that they violate some of your patents.

    That's exactly what happens, although usually with a bit more negotiating than the Cold War.

    When I worked at [large builds-everything company], I heard stories of the yearly "Lawyer's Meeting", where we would meet with [other builds-everything company] and the lawyers would actually sit down and negotiate "lawsuit trades" -- we wouldn't sue them over Patent X if they wouldn't sue us over Patent Y.

    That might have just been one of those stories they told the summer interns, but it doesn't sound too far-fetched, if you ask me.

  8. Amazon's 10th anniversary by nimblebooks · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had a job interview over the phone with Jeff Bezos shortly after they launched (must have been Dec. 1995 or so). I got off the phone and my wife said, "He's a lot smarter than you, isn't he?" ;-) I wanted to take the job, but couldn't afford the 20% pay cut to $33K...

  9. Invasion of privacy? I think not. by U.Va.+Gamer · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "Some folks might consider Amazon's shopper-tracking software an invasion of privacy, but they forget that users opt-in to the Amazon system; they log in with their personal account when they purchase and send to another personal account, an address which is tied to another, gift-receiving user's account. In accord with Amazon's A9 personalized search history, which tracks users' retail browsing, Amazon has synthesized data tracking window shopping and purchase behaviors. Now, users are encouraged to log into Amazon with their personal user account, not just for shopping, but for browsing.

    "In reality, however, users no longer have to log into their personal user accounts --their account is always-on, tied to their Internet Protocol address. It has come to the point where users have to exert effort to sign-out. This is a fundamental paradigmatic shift in retail, and it has begun to manifest itself in the non-retail sector. For example, Google's Gmail allows users to go 2 weeks without confirming their personal user account password. In short, nowadays, users are never not logged into their personal user accounts."

    *This is taken from a term paper I wrote in the spring semester. I'll post the full text of "Personal User Accounts are the Future of the Internet" to my website later this week.

  10. Nope,that's how patents are used by big pharma too by Dioscorea · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For the most part these patents only exist to create some sort of nuclear stalemate - where your competitors are too afraid to sue you since it's certain that they violate some of your patents.

    You're joking, right? Surely you aren't really that naive.... Amazon is doing anything but collecting a portfolio of defensive patents...they are actively stockpiling offensive weapons to use against any competitor, anywhere, for any reason they like.

    That may be the case, but the parent post was right that this is common practise. This is exactly how patents are used e.g. by big pharmaceutical companies, who stockpile patents on various processes as a sort of Mutual Assured Destruction policy against each other.

    I personally agree with you that MAD is nuts, and counter to the public interest. I also hate patents on "streaming media", etc. However, Amazon's behaviour shouldn't be seen out of context. The point is that many other technology companies are doing this too, and perhaps (as the FSF has decided) a more accurate barometer of their intentions is the way in which they use these patents.

    (FSF, at least, seems to think the Barnes and Noble lawsuit ended without too much collateral damage; see link in article summary.)