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Amazon had razor thin margins because they're spending hundreds of millions on a bunch of different projects that they expect will be the the future of collecti

• phaus 12y ago
  I fully understand that Amazon invests in these types of projects because they are focusing on growth. The original claim was that hundreds of millions of dollars is a trivial amount of money for Amazon to spend even if a project is a failure. I was simply stating that this is not the case at all. If Amazon has spent 100s of millions of dollars on a smartphone program that turns out to be a failure then it is going to be a painful experience for them. I'm not saying that Amazon has spent $100 million+ on smartphones. I'm also not saying that the project is a failure. I'm simply responding to the hypothetical claim that 100s of millions of dollars isn't a significant amount of money to Amazon.
  • maxerickson 12y ago
    They spent $6.5 billion on "Technology and content" in 2013. $100 million is ~1.5% of that. So not quite a rounding error, but close. They also spent ~$5 billion in 2012 and I guess they will spend a similar amount this year. (That segment includes all sorts of spending, but in the 2013 annual report they do call out devices as one of the focuses of that spending)
    • phaus 12y ago
      The importance of the money isn't just determined by how large of an amount it is compared to Amazon's budget.