In 1999, American magazine Barron’s published a cover story titled “Amazon.bomb”. The story predicted that Amazon’s stock price tag would come crashing down and that the true winners of the Internet boom would be “firms that sell their own products directly”. Dismissing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as “just another middleman”, the story study: “The idea that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has pioneered a new business paradigm is silly.”
It’s protected to say the short article did not age nicely. More than two decades later, Amazon is worth $1.6 trillion in market place cap and Jeff Bezos is counted amongst the world’s richest individuals. Mr Bezos took to social media today to share the Barron’s cover story with an inspirational message.
“Listen and be open, but don’t let anybody tell you who you are,” he wrote. Mr Bezos added that the story was just one of lots of that predicated Amazon’s failure. “Today, Amazon is one of the world’s most successful companies and has revolutionized two entirely different industries,” he concluded though sharing a image of the 1999 short article.
Listen and be open, but do not let anyone inform you who you are. This was just one of the lots of stories telling us all the techniques we have been going to fail. Today, Amazon is one of the world’s most effective corporations and has revolutionized two completely unique industries. pic.twitter.com/MgMsQHwqZl
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) October 11, 2021
Jeff Bezos’s post on Twitter has gone viral with more than 13,000 ‘likes’. While lots of in the comments section praised the Amazon and Blue Origin founder for his vision, most of the consideration was focused on a comment from his longtime enterprise rival, Elon Musk.
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, merely responded to the tweet with a silver medal emoji. For the uninitiated, Mr Musk surpassed the Amazon boss as the world’s richest individual last month and took a celebratory crack at him by telling Forbes in an e mail that he would send Jeff Bezos a silver medal for becoming the world’s second-richest individual. “I’m sending a giant statue of the digit ‘2’ to Jeffrey B., along with a silver medal,” Elon Musk wrote in his quick e mail.
????
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 11, 2021
Netflix co-CEO also responded to Mr Bezos’s tweet
The deeper the doubts, the sweeter the achievement. https://t.co/dgrbu6yB3d
— Reed Hastings (@reedhastings) October 11, 2021
Meanwhile, right here is a look at some other reactions to Jeff Bezos’s post:
Congratulations on all of the ingenuity and challenging work you place forth to make Amazon the achievement that it is…I cannot think about the sacrifices that you had to make to reach this form of achievement – bravo!
— TheGlaze (@alynglazerman) October 11, 2021
Now that is a quote I have to adhere to by just about every day!
— Patrick David Jenkins (@Drchoker) October 11, 2021
Lot of similarities with what is has been going on with #Tesla for the previous decade.
— alseT (@LivingMuskDream) October 11, 2021
Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in July this year. Under him, Amazon went from getting an on the internet marketplace for books to the world’s biggest e-commerce organization.