US: Jeff Bezos: “One day, Amazon will fail”

Jeff Bezos has declared that Amazon is “not too big to fail,” in an all-hands meeting of the company’s staff held last Thursday, November 15, at the firm’s base in Seattle.

“I predict one day Amazon will fail. Amazon will go bankrupt,” the billionaire said, replying to an employee who asked him about the company’s future, in relation to the bankruptcies of big US retailers such as Sears.

“If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years.”
Bezos said that the goal was to delay the inevitable for as long as possible — and that the way to do that was to focus on customers.

“If we start to focus on ourselves, instead of focusing on our customers, that will be the beginning of the end … We have to try and delay that day for as long as possible,” he said.

Several Amazon employees who spoke with CNBC on the condition of anonymity said government regulation and potential antitrust violations were “big concerns” when looking to the future of the company.

“It’s a fact that we’re a large company,” Bezos said in the recording heard by CNBC. “It’s reasonable for large institutions of any kind, whether it be companies or governments, to be scrutinized.”