“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves” –Tim Berners-Lee
#50 Jan 30, 2023
⚡️@AndreyFradkin: 1/ Excited to release our NBER working paper on Amazon's preferencing of its own products in search results. This is a short paper that uses a new tool, a browser extension, to measure real Amazon users' search results and behavior. Joint w/ Chiara Farronato and @_amackay
⚠️ Earnings Announcement: Feb 2, 2023
Q4 2022 Amazon.com, Inc. Earnings Conference Call
Press Release | Conference Call
#49 Jan 30, 2023
⚡️Linas’s Newsletter: Amazon's NFT initiative could be the inflection point for Web3 🚀; Klarna just copied Spotify. And it’s brilliant 👏; Bitpanda goes B2B, or Bitpanda-as-a-Service 🐼
#48 Jan 29, 2023
⚡️@TSOH_Investing: $AMZN Shipping Costs, % of Non-AWS Revenues
#47 Jan 28, 2023
⚡️@4Awesometweet: Breaking. Amazon to start charging delivery fees for ALL Fresh grocery orders Beginning Feb. 28, Prime Members will incur a $9.95 delivery fee for orders under $50, orders between $50 and $100 a $6.95 fee, orders between $100 and $150 a $3.95 fee
#46 Jan 28, 2023
⚡️@TicTocTick: $AMZN to sell all of it’s Bay Area offices acquired during the pandemic expansion.
#45 Jan 27, 2023
⚡️nasdaq.com: The Top Companies in the Cloud Computing Space
[Transcription] Amazon’s (AMZN) Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to be the market leader in cloud computing.
It dominated 34% of the cloud infrastructure services market in Q3 CY2022. During FY2017 (January–December), AWS earned $17.46 billion in revenue, which increased to $25.66 billion and $35.02 billion in FY2018 and FY2019, respectively.
During FY2020 and FY2021, AWS posted a revenue of $45 billion and 62.2 billion. During the Q3 FY2022, AWS reported a revenue of $20.53 billion vis-à-vis $16.11 billion during Q3 FY2021.
Amazon will be reporting its Q4 FY2022 numbers on February 2, 2023.
🔹Continue reading Cloud Computing insights
#44 Jan 27, 2023
⚡️@TickerHistory: Jeff Bezos talking about one of the first Amazon $AMZN orders in 1995 The order was from Bulgaria and the customer paid with cash mailed inside a floppy disk
#43 Jan 26, 2023
⚡️blockworks.co: Amazon NFT Initiative Coming Soon: Exclusive
[Transcription] Amazon is launching a digital assets enterprise, according to four sources familiar with the matter, who said that an NFT initiative is expected in the spring.
Amazon has been shopping the digital collectibles effort to no shortage of power players in the industry, per multiple sources. Said to be among those entities are layer-1 blockchains, blockchain-based gaming startups and developers and digital asset exchanges. There’s a focus on blockchain-based gaming and related NFT applications, two sources said.
One example in the works, per one source: getting Amazon customers to play crypto games and claim free NFTs in the process.
The effort is still developing, sources said. April appears to have been penciled in for the e-commerce giant to make its bold crypto ambitions public.
🔹Continue reading “Amazon NFT Initiative Coming Soon: Exclusive”
🔹Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Explained by aws.amazon.com:
[Transcription] What challenges / risks exist for adoption of non-fungible tokens?
There are various challenges and risks that may affect the adoption of non-fungible tokens, including but not limited to:
i) Complexity: The technology and tooling behind non-fungible tokens and the decentralized applications (dapps) that underpin them are still nascent despite the increasing adoption amongst startups and enterprises alike; Many of the complexities associated with building NFT-related solutions are not yet abstracted by quality tooling.
ii) Regulatory/Legal Implications: With the introduction of new and innovative technologies, particularly ones that involve speculative or high-value assets, come distinct regulatory and legal considerations including but not limited to know your customer procedures, anti money laundering mechanisms, and securities law compliance.
iii) Rapid Innovation: The rapid pace of innovation in the NFT ecosystem and the blockchain networks on which they are issued presents challenges for those adopting the technology in the form of consistent change; agility and modularity are critical.
iv) Concerns Regarding Ecological Impact: Controversy continues in regard to the impact that energy-intensive blockchain networks that utilize the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism have on climate change, and NFT-focused products have been a target for such criticism. However, solutions already exist to ameliorate this concern, such as the adoption of less energy-intensive consensus mechanisms and the use of “Layer 2” or L2 networks where transactions that mint NFTs can be validated more rapidly and efficiently outside of the main blockchain network. For example, the Ethereum blockchain network is well on its way to shifting towards the more energy-efficient Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism in its Ethereum 2.0 launch, and Layer 2 solutions like Polygon and ImmutableX are already helping reduce the load today.
#42 Jan 26, 2023
⚡️@unusua_whales: At Amazon, $AMZN, even the HR staffers are looking for new jobs while still employed, a sign of growing nervousness over layoffs, per Bloomberg.
#41 Jan 25, 2023
⚡️disaccociated.com: Australians prefer physical books says Amazon Kindle research
By John Lampard
[Transcription] Amazon Kindle recently quizzed just over one thousand Australians about their reading habits. Here are some of the findings that caught my eye:
Almost half those surveyed read fewer than five books in the past twelve months
Meanwhile just over five percent said they’d read fifty or more books in the same time frame. That’s almost a book a week, maybe more, for some in that five percent band
Sixty-eight percent of respondents read physical books, compared to twenty-two percent who favoured electronic formats
Mystery, true crime, and romance, where among the most popular fiction genres. Sadly, poetry barely rated a mention. Literary fiction, apparently, was not assessed
About twenty-five percent of people said they read to experience escapism and alternate realities, while not quite forty percent read for relaxation
On the other hand, about one percent of respondents said they did not enjoy reading at all. Hmm, ok, I see.
Q12 - "DecPR - Amazon Kindle research" (Survey #7129721)
🔹Amazon Kindle Research by Alchemer
#40 Jan 24, 2023
⚡️Boondogle: 'The Commonwealth of Amazon'
A Virginia deal with Amazon Web Services shows the perils of corporate subsidies and consolidation.
#39 Jan 24, 2023
⚡️@ajasy: Nearly half of adults take 2 or more medications daily & many find it hard to afford them. Am excited about launching RxPass to help. For just $5 a month, Prime members can fill all their eligible medications (shipping included, no hidden fees or markups).
⚡️SquawkCNBC Reaction
#38 Jan 24, 2023
⚡️CIRP - Amazon Report: Smart Speaker Market Slows, but Echo Still Dominates
*Post for paid subscribers
#37 Jan 23, 2023
⚡️aboutamazon.in: Amazon Air takes off in India
[Transcription] Amazon India has launched Amazon Air, making it the first e-commerce company in the country to have a dedicated air cargo network . Amazon Air will utilise the complete cargo capacity of a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, operated by Quikjet Cargo Airlines, a joint venture between AFL and the Ireland-based ASL Aviation Group. The Amazon-branded aircraft will transport customer shipments to cities such as Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai.
#36 Jan 20, 2023
⚡️VirginiaBiz: BREAKING: Amazon Web Services plans to invest $35 billion by 2040 to establish multiple data center campuses across Virginia, creating 1,000 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Friday.
#35 Jan 18, 2023
⚡️aboutamazon.com: Amazon closing AmazonSmile to focus its philanthropic giving to programs with greater impact
[Transcription] The company, which ranks among the top corporate philanthropists in the U.S., will continue to pursue and invest in other areas where it can make meaningful change—from building affordable housing to providing access to computer science education for students in underserved communities.
⚡️@TheDomino Reaction
#34 Jan 16, 2023
⚡️@bespokeinvest: Of the "big four" trillion dollar market cap companies, only Amazon $AMZN has managed to move back above its 50-DMA. $SPY is currently more than 2% above its 50-DMA.
#33 Jan 16, 2023
⚡️@TickerHistory: The original Amazon $AMZN website (1995)
#32 Jan 15, 2023
⚡️@MichaelAArouet: Simply amazing, presented without further comments👇 $AMZN ht @rubenbmathisen
#31 Jan 13, 2023
⚡️FLATLINING: The GOP healthcare "agenda" in 2023
[Transcription] Corporate takeovers in healthcare could threaten cost and clinician autonomy
As we have discussed several times on the FLATLINING Podcast and here on the Friday Pulse Check, large retail entities are making moves into the healthcare sphere. “Big Retail” (for lack of a better term) has been making inroads into the primary care market. For example, Amazon.com (AMZN 5.04%↑) proposed a $3.9 billion purchase of OneMedical, CVS’ (CVS 1.45%↑) has planned an $8 billion acquisition of Signify Health and exploring a purchase of Oak Street Health, and Walmart (WMT 0.67%↑) , Optum, Humana (HUM 0.52%↑) , and Agilon Health (AGL 5.09%↑) are all looking into their own buys. …continue reading
#30 Jan 11, 2023
⚡️stream.alpha-sense.com: Former Competitor Believes AMZN Clinic Is in Early Stages of Growth and the Product Strategy Is Still Being Developed
[Transcription] Call Summary
Thinks the AMZN Clinic website is fairly generic, which may be a sign that management is still finalizing a long-term strategic plan Believes AMZN has an amazing opportunity to provide a unique and personalized experience for Clinic customers, by utilizing the broader platform to better understand the consumer In the expert's opinion, competitors are generally offering a similar experience, with similar services.
[Transcription] Table of contents
Overview of the telehealth industry
Challenges in the telehealth industry
Benefits of having more data points on patients
Medical content in telehealth being used in SEO play
Hims & Hers stand out in its marketing strategies
Amazon as an outlier in ease and convenience
Amazon Clinic website being relatively dry
Amazon to use purchase information in telehealth marketing
Amazon Clinic website being generic
Marketing strategies for Amazon Clinic11. Telehealth companies to tap into patients' emotions in marketing
#29 Jan 11, 2023
⚡️@BigBullCap: Cloud sales expected to surge 24% CAGR - BofA $AMZN $GOOGL MSFT 0.00%↑
#28 Jan 11 ,2023
⚡️CIRP - Amazon Report: Prime Members - More Buying, More Returns
[Transcription] Last week we looked at how Amazon customers handle product returns. We noted 42% of Amazon customers have returned an item in the past year, and almost three-quarters of those returns were via UPS, FedEx, or the US Postal Service.
Prime members account for almost three-quarters of Amazon orders in the US, so their return habits drive the typical return patterns. Still, we wondered how Prime members’ returns differ from those of non-Prime members.
*Post for paid subscribers
#27 Jan 10, 2023
⚡️trueup.io: Tech Layoff Tracker (2022-23 Tech Downturn) > Stay up-to-date on the latest layoffs across big tech, tech unicorns, and top startups. So far in 2023, there have been 50 layoffs at tech companies with 19.855 people impacted. In 2022, there were 1,517 layoffs at tech companies with 237,874 people impacted. (updated)
#26 Jan 9, 2023
⚡️stratechery.com: AI and the Big Five (Amazon) by Ben Thompson
🔹Link
🟦 #25 Jan 8, 2023 ⇢⇢⇢ 🟦 #18 Jan 3, 2023
⚡️fool.com: Should You Be Worried About Amazon's Recent $8 Billion Loan?
[Transcription] It's only speculation of course, but perhaps this $8 billion loan is an indirect sign that Amazon is facing a near-term liquidity crisis.
That's certainly not a stretch argument. While it continues to generate ridiculous amounts of revenue, Amazon is also losing money. Burdened by high shipping, inventory, and personnel costs, the company only produced $9.5 billion worth of net operating income through the first three quarters of 2022. …Continue reading
#18 Jan 3, 2023
⚡️@1MainCapital: Why does $amzn need an $8bn term loan for one year?
⇢ Form 8-K (SEC.gov) | Term Loan Agreement
#24 Jan 8, 2023
⚡️@JoinCommonStock: "AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud account for the majority of the market right now. Why would that change over the next 5-10 years?" $GOOGL $AMZN $MSFT What do you think?
#23 Jan 6, 2023
⚡️VSoien: You need a lot of rally to repair this chart $AMZN
#22 Jan 6, 2023
⚡️bleepingcomputer.com: Amazon S3 will now encrypt all new data with AES-256 by default
[Transcription] Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) will now automatically encrypt all new objects added on buckets on the server side, using AES-256 by default.
While the server-side encryption system has been available on AWS for over a decade, the tech giant has enabled it by default to bolster security.
Administrators will not have to take any actions for the new encryption system to affect their buckets, and Amazon promises it won't have any negative performance impact.
🔹Continue reading “Amazon S3 will now encrypt all new data with AES-256 by default“
🔹AWS Blog: Amazon S3 Encrypts New Objects By Default
#21 Jan 5, 2023
⚡️aboutamazon.com: Update from CEO Andy Jassy on role eliminations
[Transcription] Today, I wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles. Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations.
PXT Solutions is Hiring Globally “PXT - The future is now!” (04-07-22)
#20 Jan 4, 2023
⚡️fool.com: 1 Scary Chart for Amazon Investors
[Transcriptions] Key Points
Amazon was churning out cash during the first two years of the pandemic.
The good times are now coming to an end as the company grapples with a tough economy and too much capacity.
Free cash flow has crashed into deep negative territory.
A deep hole.
How bad is this situation for Amazon? Here's a chart that should concern investors:
AMZN Free Cash Flow data by YCharts
Amazon reports three separate free cash flow figures, which account for finance leases differently, and the numbers vary by billions of dollars. But the chart shows the trend: a pandemic boom followed by a catastrophic bust.
Amazon's free cash flow soared in the early days of the pandemic, even as the company was pouring cash into expanding its capacity. The stock soared, valued as if this incredible profitability was the new normal and that it would continue to grow rapidly. At one point in 2021, Amazon was valued at more than $1.8 trillion.
The company generated reported free cash flow of $31 billion in 2020, putting the price-to-free cash flow ratio at around 60 when the stock was topping out. Free cash flow less equipment finance leases was closer to $21.4 billion, putting the price-to-free cash flow ratio at 84. Either way, investors were clearly extremely optimistic about Amazon's future.
#19 Jan 3, 2023
⚡️@1MainCapital: Why does $amzn need an $8bn term loan for one year?
⇢ Form 8-K (SEC.gov) | Term Loan Agreement
⚡️D_Rose92 Reaction
#18 Jan 2, 2023
⚡️@InvestorMexican: Amazon is a great company, we all know that. However, when we look at the current valuation it might seem VERY expensive at first glance, with its 74x EV/EBIT ratio. The point is that this assessment is false and I want to explain it in this tweet
[Translated from Spanish by Google]
📆 January 20, 2023 Live Workshop
Last day to enroll: Tuesday, Jan 17, 2023)Learn the Leadership & Techniques for Working Backwards from the author of —The Amazon Way.
Adapt your leadership skills and techniques to develop an innovation machine. Learn practical techniques including the famous “working backwards” approach for innovating, made famous by Amazon. Workshop is led by former Amazon executive and best-selling author of “The Amazon Way” and “Think Like Amazon”, John Rossman.
#17 Dec 31, 2022
⚡️@ritholz: This might be the wildest performance comparison I can think of: As terrible of a year as $TSLA is having, check out the 2-year comparison between Elon's company and $AMZN. The retailer did worse than EV carmaker...
#16 Dec 29, 2022
⚡️YCombinator (HN) leoff: It's easier and faster to pirate an e-book, than it is to buy it
⚠️ Keywords: E-Book, Kindle, E-Pub, Amazon Books[Transcription] The end of the year is coming, and I have some funds left from my company learning budget. I wanted to give it back to some of the authors that still help me in my developer journey, by buying some of their work online and hopefully contributing to their income, but the following happened:
1. I went to Amazon, since I have a kindle and didn't want to buy physical books. Amazon doesn't have a shopping card for kindle books, so I started buying them one by one. My company uses Spendesk for managing funds, so for each of the purchase I created a new virtual card and bought them.
After a few minutes my Amazon account is blocked for suspicious activity, and ALL my kindle library is wiped, and the funds are returned to my company.
2. Not wanting to give up, I go to a different online store, Thalia, to buy the books again. After buying them, I download the files, which are in an .acsm format, and can only be opened on the Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) software. Once opened, an .epub file is downloaded, and even though I can't transfer the files to my kindle on ADE, I download Calibre to transfer them. Once I try opening them on Calibre, I get an error message saying the files are protected by DRM.
Funnily enough, it's possible to remove this DRM protection, but it's also not something completely legal, and makes me question why did I decide to legally buy the e-books in the first place.
After spending hours trying to buy e-books, having my Amazon account blocked, and downloading files that can't be transferred to my Kindle, the only conclusion I come to, is that I'm never buying e-books again.
#15 Dec 29, 2022
⚡️TheInformation.com (Nick Wingfield): Bezos Could Be the Real Winner from Amazon’s Sports Deals
[Transcription] Last week, Martin Peers questioned in this space whether tech companies were making a wise move when they began showering billions of dollars on sports leagues for streaming rights to their games. But even if those deals turn out to be duds for the likes of Amazon, Alphabet’s YouTube and others, tech billionaires may have found another way to make a bundle from them: by buying the sports teams themselves.
The latest test of that could come from Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chair of Amazon, who is reportedly among the bidders for the Washington Commanders NFL team. The top bids for the team, which were due last Friday, have exceeded $7 billion, Forbes reported last week. If that eye-watering figure is accurate, it would represent a spectacular profit for the Commander’s current owner, Dan Snyder, who paid $750 million for the team, formerly known as the Redskins, in 1999. It would also be a huge bump over the record $4.65 billion the Denver Broncos sold for earlier this year.
#14 Dec 28, 2022
⚡️bespokeinvest: Yesterday Amazon $AMZN closed at $83.04, which means it's now 79 cents BELOW its COVID Crash low of $83.83 made on 3/12/20. Not only have all of AMZN's post-pandemic gains been erased, but it's now trading below its lowest close made during the COVID Crash.
#13 Dec 28, 2022
⚡️@chgirl: India taking on $AMZN and $WMT India aims to ‘democratise’ online shopping with ecommerce network
#12 Dec 27, 2022
⚡️@StockMKTNewz: Amazon $AMZN has started making drones deliveries to customers in both Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas
#11 Dec 26, 2022
⚡️stevenmarkryan: Remember that time $AMZN crashed ~90% between 1999-2001....... (it's up ~16,000% since).
#10 Dec 24, 2022
⚡️@theeagle: It's official, the drones are airborne. Texas made history on Friday after Amazon Prime Air announced its drones are up in the air and operational in College Station.
✅ Amazon Prime Air Drone Facility, College Station City Council (TX)
#9 Dec 23, 2022
⚡️@DisruptorStocks: Hard times hitting $AMZN- looking to sell excess cargo space
#8 Dec 23, 2022
⚡️Big Technology: How Amazon Uses AI To Automate Work In Its Corporate HQ
#7 Dec 21, 2022
⚡️@ecommerceshares: Chinese e-commerce stock $PDD is now the #3 best performing stock in the Nasdaq 100 YTD. It’s outperformed $AMZN by a nice and even 100 percentage points. I swear quite a few people tweeted that the “sector is uninvestable”… Always depends on WHEN and at WHAT PRICE you buy!
#6 Dec20, 2022
⚡️@bespokeinvest: Yesterday, Amazon $AMZN became the first of the mega-caps to see a $1+ trillion drawdown in market cap. All six of $AAPL $AMZN $GOOGL $MSFT $META and $TSLA are in $750+ billion market cap drawdowns for a combined drop of more than $5 trillion.
#5 Dec 20, 2022
⚡️@LongHillRoadCap: Former Robotics Manager at Amazon $AMZN via @StreamRG "For 60-70 years of robotics, item pick has been the Holy Grail of robotics... [It] is becoming real. Amazon has their new system, Sparrow. If you read about it on the news, it's doing item pick."
#4 Dec 20, 2022
@WatcherGuru: Amazon $AMZN becomes the first company to lose $1 trillion in market value, the biggest loss in history.
⚡️
@KobeissiLetter: Just to put things in perspective: The total market cap lost in $AMZN, $MSFT, $META, $GOOGL and crypto this year is $5.5 trillion. The total market cap lost from 2007 to 2009 was approximately $8 trillion. Just 4 stocks and crypto alone are already nearing 2008-level losses.
#3 Dec 17, 2022
⚡️@Nasdaq: Innovation sometimes comes with a stumble or two along the way. @amazon VP of Global Innovation Policy and Communications Paul Misener discusses embracing failure as the occasional result of pushing the envelope. Listen to @Nasdaq’s #WorldReimagined: Nasdaq.com/world-reimagined-podcast
Embracing Risk-Taking in Leadership: Knowing When to Say Yes with Annie Duke and Paul Misener
Transcript: Innovation always requires some level of risk. For leaders, this means taking the right risks and knowing when to walk away. How do leaders make decisions when the outcome is uncertain? How do they create a culture that promotes innovation and enables risk taking?
In this episode, host Gautam Mukunda [@Gmukunda] speaks with Annie Duke, Cognitive Scientist, Decision Strategist, and Paul Misener, the VP of Global Innovation Policy and Communication at Amazon about the process of decision-making and innovation in uncertain conditions.
“If we are not failing ever, we are not trying hard enough; we are not being innovative enough.”
— Paul Misener, VP of Global Innovation Policy and Communications at Amazon
“There's a time-accuracy trade-off when we're making decisions. The more time we take, usually, the more accuracy we're going to accrue. The less time we take, the less accuracy we're going to accrue.”
— Annie Duke, Author of Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away
#2 Dec 13, 2022
⚡️CIRP - Amazon Report: Do Amazon Shoppers Still Use Computers?
*Post for paid subscribers
#1 Nov 7, 2019 (archives)
@BrianRoemmele: The 1997 lost @JeffBezos video. Why start @Amazon with just book? The reason is quite quite interesting. We are seeing the same thought process play out with Alexa. Just like in 1997, many folks today in the tech industry are flummoxed by how this all happens.
⚡️
@BrianRoemmele: This lost 1997 video of @JeffBezos shows the first time he spoke of Day One in public. This is clarity of mind and mission personified:
⚡️
Full video (tweet)