Page 21 - Forbes Magazine-September 30, 2018
P. 21
JEFF BEZOS
nlike America’s Nevertheless, Bezos talks about Am-
azon like it’s a giddy startup that just
other tech giants, “WHAT BEZOS
closed its Series A. “For all practical pur-
Amazon doesn’t poses, the market size is unconstrained,” HAS DONE
have a tradition- says Bezos, his rolled-up sleeves show- IS PERHAPS
al campus. Th e ing off Popeye-like forearms, the prod-
uct of midlife weight training that has THE MOST
45,000 or so em- produced buzzed-about results for the
Uployees and ex- 54-year-old. His growth rationale comes REMARKABLE
ecutives in Seattle, out of from a “super-lucky” confl uence: Th e ACHIEVEMENT
retail market, Amazon’s original quar-
575,000 worldwide, fan across
ry, is “many trillions,” as is, he says, the I’VE SEEN.”
numerous high-rises down- cloud market that Amazon Web Ser vices
town and in the South Lake (AWS) pioneered. “Th ere are diff erent
businesses where the market is limited,” multaneously, and sort of under the nose
Union neighborhood. Ama-
adds the man whose company should hit of competitors, he’s become in eff ect the
zon’s “headquarters” defaults $210 billion in revenue this year. “But we leader and is redefi ning them and suc-
to where Jeff Bezos, the com- just don’t have that issue.” ceeding at really big businesses.”
pany’s founder and CEO, hap- If Jeff Bezos is already the world’s Th ough Bezos and Buff ett were refer-
most feared businessperson, the pros- ring to retail and the cloud, Bezos is ac-
pens to be, currently Day 1 pect of him “unconstrained” should tually unconstrained in far more ways.
Tower. Its name comes from a sober every corporate leader. Yes, he’s First, thanks to AWS, the company fa-
perpetual Bezos maxim: that, ruthless and a master of the long game, mous for emphasizing growth over prof-
but Bezos’ greatest strength, borne out itability is fi nally spitting out billions—
relatively, we’re still at “day
over the past few years, has been his and Bezos has the market credibility to
one” of the internet—and, by ability to shape-shift Amazon into ad- reinvest it in pretty much any way he
extension, that Amazon is just jacent businesses—some of which were wants. Second, the scale that Amazon
adjacent only in retrospect—on a mas- needs for growth practically demands
getting started.
sive scale. It’s quantifi able: Forbes has aggressiveness. And, fi nally, by dominat-
Th at’s getting harder to been ranking innovative companies for ing retail and digital business services,
say with a straight face, with eight years, and we recently worked with both of which touch almost every other
a trio of management professors to try industry, he’s now positioned to move
sales, profi ts and the stock
to determine the country’s most inno- adjacently into just about any business
price all soaring, the latter up vative business leaders (see p. 84). Th e where he fi nds added value. He’s playing
270% over three years and four-prong methodology—incorpo- in the multibillions in at least four mar-
103% in the past 12 months. rating public reputation and infl uence, kets—healthcare, entertainment, con-
value creation and the premium that in- sumer electronics and advertising—that
Amazon is closing in on vestors assign to the chief executive— constitute many of the companies not al-
Apple to become the world’s places Bezos squarely at the top. ready terrifi ed of Amazon. It’s no coinci-
most valuable company, and “What Jeff Bezos has done and is like- dence that each of those four either hits
ly to do is perhaps the most remark- or approaches the “trillions” potential
Bezos, whose personal net able achievement I’ve seen,” Warren Buf- Bezos alluded to.
worth approaches fett told me last year, aft er I asked While his pioneering peers of the
$160 billion, has in him, open-ended, to name the fi rst dot-com era embraced and popu-
most impressive business mind in larized the “open kimono,” Bezos has al-
the process become
his almost eight decades of mar- ways viewed stealthiness as an asset,
the planet’s richest ket-watching. “Because he’s taken masking new initiatives inside larger ex-
person, by far. two very major industries, and si- penditures and feigning disinterest in
$8.7
$7.8 Billion
Billion
$5.1
$4.7 $4.8
Billion Billion $4.3 Billion $3.6
Billion Billion
$1.8
$1.6
$1.2 Billion
Billion Billion
YEAR 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Forbes 400 Rank 102 18 48 189 100 32 38 42 70 35
76 | FORBES SEPTEMBER 30, 2018
