On: Amazon R&D spending is more than that of all companies and government of France

[simonw]

Does that Amazon number include the cost of physically purchasing and installing all of those AWS server farms? Building robotic warehouses?

I get that they have high R&D costs but I'm still trying to get my head around how that money is being spent.

[simonw → simonw]

Looks like the numbers being described are here: https://ir.aboutamazon.com/news-release/news-release-details...

This bit:

    Cost of Sales: 272,344
    Fulfillment: 75,111
    Technology and Content: 73,213
    Sales and Marketing: 32,551
    General and Administrative: 8,823
    Other Operating Expense (Income), Net: 62

So Technology and Content is the $73bn number.

I think Fulfillment covers warehouse and delivery costs.

"Technology and Content" presumably mixes in Amazon Prime studios, which apparently was $16bn in 2022: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/03/amazon-ramped-up-content-s...

My guess is that it covers AWS infrastructure too.

[robertlagrant → simonw]

Surely the $1bn on Rings of Power isn't "R&D"?

[lnxg33k1 → simonw]

Bring the corporate version of Dr Evil into space