I don't disagree with some of the specific points, and to be clear success of Amazon is not all attributed to one individual.
I'm sure one can agree that success at this scale is a combination of right strategy, lucky timing.
But I also believe in butterfly effect, the levers a CEO holds on a company have 1000X multiplier effect than a normal employee, and any change of leader means an Amazon with a market cap of 3T vs 3B. Thats is not to say a 3B company doesn't have a flywheel and won't make consistent profit.
I look at the likes of eBay, Newegg all were non B&M and still couldn't grow to anywhere near the size.
In the end, it could have been Joe Pizza that was at the helm of Amazon that succeeded to 3T market cap, same argument can be made that replacing Joe Pizza wouldn't have lead to the similar result. All the pieces (luck, personalities, vision, skills etc...), of the puzzle have to match just right for such a large scale success.
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I don't disagree with some of the specific points, and to be clear success of Amazon is not all attributed to one individual. I'm sure one can agree that success at this scale is a combination of right strategy, lucky timing.
But I also believe in butterfly effect, the levers a CEO holds on a company have 1000X multiplier effect than a normal employee, and any change of leader means an Amazon with a market cap of 3T vs 3B. Thats is not to say a 3B company doesn't have a flywheel and won't make consistent profit. I look at the likes of eBay, Newegg all were non B&M and still couldn't grow to anywhere near the size.
In the end, it could have been Joe Pizza that was at the helm of Amazon that succeeded to 3T market cap, same argument can be made that replacing Joe Pizza wouldn't have lead to the similar result. All the pieces (luck, personalities, vision, skills etc...), of the puzzle have to match just right for such a large scale success.