Amazon: A Disrupter of All Things

From Barry Ritholtz, at Bloomberg, "Woe to Those Disrupted by Amazon":

The more I think about what Amazon actually is, the closer I come to this: It’s a self-funding incubator that ruthlessly kills the ventures that don’t work (remember the Fire mobile phone?), while pouring cash into the ones that hold promise. It’s a marketplace for new and used products, a place to hire people for services, a content company, a software maker, a gadget business, a cloud company and so on. Oh, and it’s an online retailer that just happens to be the world’s sixth-biggest company by market value -- about $365 billion.

I still am not sure exactly what Amazon’s core business is or what it will end up being. I just hope it never sees an opportunity in any business I have a vested interest in.

You have to read the whole thing to fully understand the lesson.

I love Amazon though. I'm not worried about it crushing any of my own business ventures, heh.