Amazon was nowhere near immediately viable. It was founded in 1994. It had its IPO in 1997. It posted its first net profit in 2002. It lost money for 8 years.

Amazon was nowhere near immediately viable. It was founded in 1994. It had its IPO in 1997. It posted its first net profit in 2002. It lost money for 8 years. Hardly "something that was viable immediately". On the other hand it didn't take that much investment before IPO. It was seeded with 300K from Bezos and his family followed by 50K in angel money and finally an 8MM round. http://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-original-investors-in-Amazon-and-how-much-pre-IPO-investment-did-Amazon-receive-in-total http://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-original-investors-in-Amaz... It rode the cheap cash infusion from the dot com bubble for as long as it could until the bubble collapsed. At that point it had cash but was going to run out eventually which is why I imagine they decided then it was time to try and make the company profitable rather than expand through investment.