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Yeah, it was all "luck" and certainly had nothing to do with execution. You can just make all that shit up later.

• matthewaveryusa 8y ago
  why are you quoting luck? I didn't say it, but somehow you conjecture that bezos won the lottery. Absolutely false: he is the _right_ person to execute, among a pool of a lot of other people capable of executing at the same level as him. To have 5-10 years of running a business without competition (AWS) is almost unheard of. He wouldn't have been able to do it pre commoditization of virtualization technology. edit: Bah to a certain extent you're right, plenty of tech is before its time and me saying being at the right place at the right time is a hind-sight 20-20 sort of comment. What I'm trying to say is I think lots of people have the same vision. Some people have it too early, some have it too late, and some have it at the time where the stars align: customers get it, VC gets it, and your company gets and and has the ability to execute on it. long story short I hope we can agree that while the ability to execute is a requirement it simply isn't enough.
  • jhall1468 8y ago
    "right place at right time" implies luck was the direct result of Amazon rather than any kind of underlying skill. I'm certainly not suggesting luck didn't play a role, but I'm happily suggesting that you're implication was that luck was the primary factor. I disagree.
• rchaud 8y ago
  Not just luck. Amazon started in '94, but they didn't have to charge sales taxes in most US states, giving them a regulatory loophole advantage that lasted well past 2010. Plus their survival in the early days also had to do with the millions in venture capital propping them up for a decade until they finally became profitable in 2004.