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Jeff Bezos Just Sold $1.1 Billion in Amazon Stock (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNN Money:
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the newly minted richest person in the world, just sold more than $1 billion worth of his stock. The sale was made public in a filing posted Friday. In total, Bezos let go of one million shares for $1,097,803,365. Exactly how Bezos plans to spend those Benjamins wasn't clear. But it isn't unprecedented for him to sell such a large chunk. In May, he sold more than a million shares. A similar sale was executed in August 2016.
Even after his most recent sell off, Bezos still personally owns about a 16% of Amazon, which he founded in 1994. Bezos's large ownership stake helped vault him past Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as the richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index... One possible destination for the cash Bezos just freed up is his commercial space company, Blue Origin. Earlier this year, Bezos told reporters at a space symposium that he sells about $1 billion per year worth of Amazon stock to fund the company, according to Reuters... Last month, Blue Origin Chief Executive Officer Bob Smith said he expects the first manned flight to take place by April 2019.
One Silicon Valley newspaper calls it the biggest stock sale ever.
Even after his most recent sell off, Bezos still personally owns about a 16% of Amazon, which he founded in 1994. Bezos's large ownership stake helped vault him past Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as the richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index... One possible destination for the cash Bezos just freed up is his commercial space company, Blue Origin. Earlier this year, Bezos told reporters at a space symposium that he sells about $1 billion per year worth of Amazon stock to fund the company, according to Reuters... Last month, Blue Origin Chief Executive Officer Bob Smith said he expects the first manned flight to take place by April 2019.
One Silicon Valley newspaper calls it the biggest stock sale ever.
In answer to the question in the headling, presumably he's putting it into Blue Origin. Because that's what he said he would do.
Washington Post has gone down the toilet since he bought it.
Of all the entrepreneurs from the Dot-com era, he's the only one I respect. He doesn't have the PR people or charisma that others have and I think that's why he doesn't have the rabid fanboys. He hasn't done any movie or TV cameos where a character gushes how he's an "innovative genius".
There is absolutely no need to rape the English language like this. A simple "Jeff Bezos Just Sold..." would have been correct. If you want to use the past participle to underline the immediacy of what happened, just write out "has" in full, as in "Jeff Bezos's Has Just Sold...". The "Bezos's" contraction is technically not incorrect - it's just stylistically obtuse.
I am not a native speaker, but even to my "ears" this headline sounded atrocious.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Note that's a brief suborbital vomit comet flight that simply goes upward, nowhere near the speeds required to orbit. It's hard to imagine it'll attract much business long term after people realize they can see the blackness of space for longer in a balloon and feel weightlessness just as long on a regular vomit comet plane. Their orbital rocket won't even be ready for unmanned testing by then. It remains to be seen if the billion dollars a year is building a true competitive space company or simply being burned on a billionaire's vanity project.
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Because the newspapers actually have reporters and editors, while the stuff that shows up on the internet is neither researched nor edited; it combines garbage and half-garbage and random factoids in a mish-mash of opinion.
I also read news on the internet, but pretty much all the news that actually has substance originated from a newspaper.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You are right B.B. That is an unusual, unneeded, as well as a confusing contraction. The apostrophe "s" could even be mistaken to be the possessive form -- which makes no sense in this context. Quite right to drop the apostrophe "s" and write out "has". What is with all the unneeded apostrophes these days, anyway? They are everywhere. Drives me nuts.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Anyone we know? Or just a retirement fund or mutual fund? I'll have to look more closely at my 401K annual reports this year.
No tech bubble here. Everything hunky dory. Think I'll go home and check my portfolio...
Jeff Bezos just bought 145K Bitcoins.
#DeleteFacebook
This story is a lie. Esteemed socialists have assured me that under capitalism rich people don't reinvest their money, they put it huge vaults and swim through it like Scrooge McDuck.
Would you fly into space with a company owned by a CEO of a company that can't make a sensible web page?
Almost every Amazon web page has poor design. Book listings don't tell when the book was published, so you don't know the edition. Amazon web pages distract you by trying to sell you something else rather than the product you are considering. There are many other examples. Often an attractive low price is listed, but the shipping cost is huge.
No he took it all out in Amazon Gift cards. Who needs bit coin as an alt-currency when you can print your own if you are jeff bezos.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Would you fly into space with a company owned by a CEO of a company that can't make a sensible web page?
You're right. Amazon is a total failure. They don't stand a CHANCE up against traditional book stores and other brick-and-mortar retailers. And SHIPPING things to people? Nobody trusts that. They can't possibly provide a way for people to know when things will ship, or get them there quickly - total incompetence. And next thing you know, they're probably going to make some laughable attempt to start selling some pie-in-the-sky "cloud" services while will obviously be a total failure. The fact that their stock has gone up by several thousand percent is a sure sign that you're right about what a terrible, untrustworthy operation they are.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"Exactly how Bezos plans to spend those Benjamins wasn't clear."
I'll say. $1.1 billion is about $15 million a year for 75 years... He will need help!
Jeff Bezos may be committing a crime if he is actually using this money to fund a new company which he believes may be profitable in the future. A CEO of a company is required by law to act in the best interest of the shareholders and to put the interests of the shareholders above his own.
If Bezos believes a startup is going to be valuable one day, and sells massive chunks of his own stock (which is depressive to shareholder value) to fund the company personally, then he is putting his own individual interest above that of the shareholders to which he owes the duty.
Second, he is also in doing so depriving Amazon shareholders of the profit and value that would come from the successful startup. I see Blue Origin is registered as an LLC, which is a for-profit entity. So, he clearly believes that it will be profitable.
"It's my stock and I'll do what I want to" may be a sufficient argument in most jurisdictions, but if I were a far-left champion of the proletariat in New York or Chicago (where the exchanges are regulated), I might take a long, hard look at his wanton theft of value from the people.
They're just about done building their KSC rocket factory, they probably need additional funds to finalize design and begin construction of the New Glenn rocket. It'll be interesting to see it up and (eventually) flying, but with a first flight no earlier than 2020 I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX has their second (at least semi) reusable rocket up and flying before Blue Origin has their first one lifting off.
Anyone looking at the financials can see that Amazon is only able to do what it does because it is being propped up by market manipulation. Bezos is dumping stock before the inevitable market crash, leaving gullible buyers holding the bag.
The fact that their stock has gone up by several thousand percent is a sure sign that you're right about what a terrible, untrustworthy operation they are.
No, it's a sure sign of the bubble they are in. All lessons from 2000 and 2008 are lost, so, history shall once again, repeat. This is how the crisis industrial complex thrives.
You are doing something people often do on Slashdot. You are trying to find something wrong with what I said, and avoiding the logic.
Amazon competes with bookstores. Bookstores have traditionally been badly managed. Yes, in many cases Amazon is better than physical bookstores.
Going into the edge of space requires EXTREMELY careful management. I have never seen an indication that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is good at handling huge numbers of details. The sloppiness and self-defeat I see in the design of Amazon web pages is an example of not handling details well. Anyone have any information against that idea?
Blue Origin "spacecraft" don't orbit, they just go to the edge of space. The Blue Origin website home page requires loading some data from Cloudfront.net, and is badly designed in other ways. The Blue Origin home page says: "Our reusable rocket made history with the first ever vertical landing from space. Soon it will launch you into history too, as a pioneer in the next era of human spaceflight."
It is possible that Mr. Bezos has little involvement in the day-to-day management of Blue Origin. However, if there are sloppy details on the Blue Origin web site home page, do you think the company is, overall, good with details?
Do you want to be a tourist "launched into history" by a company that is sometimes excellent with details, and sometimes sloppy? Does it make sense to risk your life to view Earth from space, when you can get very clear high-definition photos and videos and view them safely at home?
A CEO of a company is required by law to act in the best interest of the shareholders and to put the interests of the shareholders above his own.
There is no such law. Of course, the Board is free to fire the CEO if they think he's mismanaging the company.
In any case, Bezos is selling his personal shares, not shares owned by Amazon.
If Amazon shareholders want a piece of the profit and value of Blue Origin, let them buy their own shares in Blue Origin.
Investing this money in the ability to commercially send rich people to orbit is nice, but will (a) not help them escape a ruined earth and (b) will only be funny for a short time. However, he could invest $1bn in preventing climate change and becoming therefore a hero in the history books.
Worked for a stock market research firm 15 years ago ... back then Bill Gates was cashing out of MS stock to the tune of $1b every quarter. Registered stock sales with the SEC are really a non-story. Can't say I blame them. The man would be stupid not to capitalize.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." - Napoleon Bonaparte
Or It's Insider Trading.
I see you've never heard of the Lacey Act...
>may be committing a crime
FUD. Selling your own personal stock that you own is not illegal. Find a law anywhere that says this.
(And before you think of a "gotcha" like insider trading consider the context of Bezos' sale.)
No, it's a sure sign of the bubble they are in.
No, a bubble produces irrationally high stock prices in companies that don't actually deliver any value. Amazon is now conducting roughly half of all online retail, and many other things besides. Unless you're suggesting that e-commerce is just a fad, like tulips, then you're completely missing why their stock has so steadily grown for decades.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
My favorites are how you still can't sort prime-only items by price correctly (it includes the lowest priced non-prime seller), and how Amazon literally still builds their rich pages using their normal grid layout, and in the most impossible to navigate way possible.