

Amazon shares break record... 10 years after coming public - cwan
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ay_0eQaPKWwU

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zandorg
Absolutely a great company, they did everything right.

I think junk bonds got them through the dotcom collapse.

When Half.com let people exchange 2nd-hand books, it was USA only. Then Amazon
introduced 3rd-party sellers in about 2003 in the UK, and it was great. Though
I still buy some from Abebooks (now owned by Amazon).

They even got the Internet Archive going (Alexia was bought out by Amazon).

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gbookman
Well, they didn't quite do everything right.

For one, Amazon had a really tough time when the first Internet bubble burst
back in 2000. All of a sudden they weren't able to raise capital as quickly as
they wanted to.

This would have severely impeded their growth, if not for some brilliant
improvements made to their supply chain efficiency.

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zandorg
Well, I read they bought high yield bonds (known as junk bonds in the 80s), to
get them through a nasty period where the IPO markets had dried up, and VC
obviously couldn't fund a late-stage company.

So maybe it's both bonds and improvements?

As for evidence of the bonds: Book The Warren Buffett way:

"In July 2002, only one week after Buffett wrote CEO Jeff Bezos a letter
praising him for his decision to account for stock options as an expense,
Buffett bought $98.3 million of Amazon's high yield bonds."

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wallflower
January 2000:

"With only 24 percent of sales coming from international operations, Bezos
began working to expand the firm's international base.

He also changed the firm's focus from pursuing growth at all costs, a
philosophy Bezos had dubbed "Get Big Fast," to cutting costs wherever
possible, building on the corporate overhaul started by Galli."

[http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/100/Bezos-Jeff-
DEFENDING-...](http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/100/Bezos-Jeff-DEFENDING-
AMAZON-COM.html)

