(Credit: Dan Farber) Jeff Bezos is fond of a line that he wrote in a note to Amazon's shareholders in 1997: "We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages."
That's about as good of a one line summation of the approach adopted by one of the most second-guessed CEOs in the history of the tech industry -- as well as one of its most successful. But investors with short-term horizons haven't been so enamored of a CEO more keen on doing what he thinks is best for the company's long-term prospects. Indeed, the record will show that throughout Amazon's 18-year history, Wall Street has time and again nagged Bezos about the amount of money spent on Amazon's sundry `investments' as well as its refusal to share the wealth in the form of quarterly dividends.
Jeff Bezos at Kindle Fire announcement in New York, Sept. 28, 2011
(Credit: CNET)
That complaint has been around for years, even as Bezos created one of the Internet's early juggernauts, Time magazine named him its "Person of the Year" in 1999. Bezos, it wrote, had "done more than construct an online mall. He's helped build the foundation of our future." A bit schmaltzy but a fair appreciation of someone who did as much as any of his ... [Read more]
via CNET http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cnet/NnTv/~3/3AFPtMTgYTg/
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