jeff bezos

Amazon's Bezos defends heavy investments in Prime, Kindle

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos today defended the company's stance on heavy investments in certain areas, saying it's focused on its customers, not its rivals, and that it believes its strategy is the best for the long term.

For years, Bezos has demonstrated a preference for plowing resources into initiatives to build market share but take years to generate profits. That seeming indifference to near-term profits worries Wall Street, with many expressing reservations over the years about the impact on margins. Amazon is believed to make little, if any, money on its gadgets, instead relying on customers to … Read more

Amazon's Bezos leads $5M investment in Business Insider

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos led an investment group that pumped $5 million in news Web site Business Insider.

In a press release, the news site's co-founder, Henry Blodget, said that Bezos Expeditions, the executive's investment company, led the new round of financing that also included existing Business Insider investors Institutional Venture Partners and RRE Ventures.

"On a personal note, I will add that we are totally stoked about this," Blodget wrote.

In a note to staff, Blodget noted that the proceeds will be used to invest in editorial, technology, sales and marketing, subscriptions, and events. … Read more

Bezos Expeditions recovers pieces of Apollo 11 rockets

A year after discovering rockets from the Apollo 11 moon mission on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, Bezos Expeditions has recovered "many prime pieces" of the engines, Jeff Bezos blogged today.

Amazon's billionaire founder and chief executive wrote that the crew of the ship Seabed Worker spent three weeks at sea, working almost three miles below the surface to pull up the various piece of the engines.

"We've seen an underwater wonderland -- an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves … Read more

Bill Gates still world's second richest person

Bill Gates is now worth $67 billion. But he's still only No. 2 among the world's wealthiest people.

Released today, Forbes' ranking of the richest people on the planet found Gates' fortune up $6 billion this year. The increase came not so much from Microsoft stock, which has shown little sign of life recently, but from other financial holdings and private investments.

More importantly, Forbes dubbed Gates the world's most generous person. Microsoft's chairman continues to devote a large amount of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with the goal of wiping out … Read more

Amazon profit falls by almost half, but sales rise 22 percent

Amazon's golden touch continues.

Despite missing analysts' earnings estimates for the fourth quarter -- by a country mile, actually -- Amazon's stock traded up significantly in after-hours trading. Amazon's net income fell 45 percent to $97 million, or 21 cents per diluted share, compared with $177 million, or 38 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.

In the quarter, which ended December 31, Amazon continued its double-digit sales growth with sales up 22 percent to $21.27 billion.

That fell short of the average earnings estimate of 29 cents-per-share. How to explain the initial … Read more

Gates, Ellison, other tech moguls got richer last year

It's said that the rich get richer. And that's certainly true at the moment in the tech world.

Grabbing Bloomberg's No. 2 spot among the world's top billionaries, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has an estimated worth of $63.4 billion as of yesterday. Despite donating a hefty amount of money to charitable causes, Gates' net worth managed to rise 1.1 percent over the past year, making him the richest tech mogul on the list.

Worth $40.7 billion, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison saw a 3.6 percent gain in his fortune last year. The largest … Read more

Bezos: Amazon Web Services is lean manufacturing for IT

LAS VEGAS -- Just minutes ago, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos likened Amazon Web Services to everything from Toyota's lean manufacturing methods to something slightly closer to home: the Kindle Fire business model.

Bezos took to the stage with Amazon CTO Werner Vogels here at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent conference, acknowledging that retail is a low-margin business and insisting that he's sticking to that game plan with AWS. "High margins cover a lot of sins," Bezos said. "We wouldn't know how to do a high-margin business. Low margins keep you aligned with … Read more

Jeff Bezos wants Amazon in every pocket

"People don't want gadgets, they want services," Jeff Bezos has declared. This is the Amazon CEO's sleight of hand to diminish the value of gadgets, especially those that compete with his own Kindle family of e-readers and tablets. The services, and apps, make gadgets useful, so don't become blinded by the glare of shiny objects from Apple, Samsung, Google and others, he seems to be saying.

Bezos' "services, not gadgets" trope contrasts the more affordable Kindle and Amazon's massive online emporium with Apple's slicker and more expensive iPads -- the … Read more

Is streaming video costing Amazon up to $1 billion a year?

If Reed Hastings is trying to paint Jeff Bezos as a spendthrift, Amazon's CEO might just take that as a compliment.

The Netflix CEO gave an interview to Dow Jones today in which he said Amazon is losing between $500 million and a $1 billion a year as a result of acquiring rights to streaming video content.

In the interview, Hastings said he came up with the numbers after comparing the value of the content deals Amazon won when the two companies directly competed for rights.

No doubt, it's an expensive business and Hastings should know given that … Read more