Page 35 - July 2018 Disruption Report

AMAZON EATS EVERYTHING JANJULAYRY20210818
ecosystem, which includes 11 million cashiers, which includes the 40 million households that have a share of Gap or Walmart. You’re effectively seeing this giant sucking sound out of the entire retail ecosystem into a small number of players.
“... Amazon is bringing the future really fast,” added Galloway. “...Just killing it. Running away with it, will probably cause a lot of huge indigestion as we realize it’s going to run away with almost everything in retail. ...I think the only thing in the way of Amazon right now is a governor or district attorney wakes up in the morning, looks in the mirror and says, ‘Hello, Mr Governor,’ and thinks that the clearest blue-line path to the gubernatorial mansion is to go after Amazon; or somebody in Brussels or D.C.” (Recode, Scott Galloway, 07/15/17)
On July 20, Amazon ranked number two in total market capitalization ($880 billion), behind Apple ($941 billion) and followed by Alphabet ($823 billion), Microsoft ($816 billion) and Facebook ($608 billion).
On July 16, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos became now the richest man in modern history, topping $150 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Bezos’ wealth crossed the threshold ahead of Amazon’s 36-hour sales event, Prime Day, which pushed the company’s share price to $1,825.73.
“It’s hard to even put it in perspective,” said Michael Cole, CEO of Cresset Family Office. “It’s such a staggering number.” (YCharts, 07/20/18; Bloomberg, 07/16/18)
Quartz’s Oliver Staley wrote:
...[Amazon’s Jeff]Bezos, like Rockefeller, appears determined to exert influence and control over ever-increasing swaths of the US economy. Just as Rockefeller started
with oil, and expanded his influence over railroads and steel, Bezos has grown Amazon from an online bookstore to an online general retailer to a force in cloud computing and entertainment. With Amazon’s planned $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods..., Bezos has signaled his intention to barrel through the grocery industry, a $600 billion segment of the economy that’s been stubbornly resistant to change.
Amazon isn’t yet a monopoly on the scale of Standard Oil, which at one point controlled 90% of US oil refining. But massive tech companies like Amazon and Alphabet (née Google) have a similar impact, warping the US economy by swallowing up competitors, choking off access to their platforms, and fueling income inequality. Their immense size
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