Jeff Bezos published his annual letter to shareowners this week. You can find it here. And as is his usual practice, he has attached his 1997 letter to shareholders at the bottom of it. This is his “Day 1” and he clearly likes the reminder.… Read More
As I am sure you have all heard, there’s a lot of debate in New York right now (city and state) about whether they should reject Amazon’s decision to open up a new headquarters in Queens. Urbanist Richard Florida has been arguing that one of… Read More
According to Amazon’s recent annual 10-K filing, the company leased and owned (most of their space is leased) about 288,419,000 square feet of space around the world at the end of 2018. Of this number, about 80% is used for “fulfillment, data centers, and other.”… Read More
Welcome to 2019. I am currently in transit and catching up on some internet reading and email on my way back to Toronto. At this time of year it is, of course, common to reminisce (or lament) about what happened over the last year, as… Read More
So I was wrong. Amazon didn’t pick Toronto for HQ2. It instead picked Crystal City, Virginia (Washington) and Long Island City, NY (New York City). More on that, here, in the NY Times. Confession: My prognostication was at least partially about trying to create a… Read More
This is not new. It has been reported on before. But I just finished reading this article about Jeff Bezos’ relentless commitment to “high-quality and high-velocity decision making” at Amazon. Here are a couple of high level points: – There are decisions that cannot be easily… Read More
At the beginning of this month, Interbrand released its annual ranking of the world’s best global brands. This year’s 2018 report marks the 19th year of the study. If you’d like to download a free copy of the report, you can do that here. But… Read More
I just finished listening to this podcast about venture capital and consumer products. One of the underlying questions is whether we are currently in a “consumer downturn.” Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures (USV) talks about the importance of “platform shifts” for venture returns. These are moments… Read More
This is an excellent talk by NYU professor Scott Galloway about Amazon, online grocery, and many other aspects of the retail landscape. The bits about Amazon’s scale and reach are fascinating. There is about 30 minutes of him speaking quickly and then another 15 minutes… Read More
As part of the Amazon HQ2 bid process, a number of cities produced videos. I only discovered them today and so maybe some of you also missed them when they were released last fall. There are videos from Detroit, Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth, Las… Read More
