Quote:
Originally Posted by smyles
Bezos didn't exactly innovate much; online shopping existed before him. What he did was he expanded (and perfected) it to a point it steered enough customers away from other business to drive them out of business, further shifting the customer base towards amazon. Same with cloud, etc.
Not saying he didn't deserve it or whatever, just wanna make sure people understand and appreciate what exactly he did right.
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I disagree, the Amazon business model is almost completely unique and innovative and he was able to get through the scale issues (years of not being profitable) to deliver almost everything you need when they make virtually nothing. Then they figured out how to get it to you quickly for very little cost. Innovation isn't limited to unique products.
I find the "he drove them out of business" tired. Virtually every successful business, from restaurants to retail are successful by getting people to spend their money with them instead of somewhere else. At one point it was Sears, Walmart and now Amazon. There were thousands of car manufacturers in the U.S. and people blamed the big three for driving them out of business. Many blame the internet for the same thing. Times change and if you don't keep current you and your business are likely to fail.
Fedex started out with overnight delivery which was unheard of for the time. You could also say they didn't innovate anything as shipping products had been around since then beginning of time.