>For much of Amazon's early history, it was something of a laughingstock, as the company had clearly stated that it didn't plan to make money in the foreseeable future, if ever.
I still remember John C. Dvorak saying how awful amazon is and that it will never make money just ~10 years ago.
Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.
I could never be sure if Dvorak was actually serious or just always writing stuff that was purposely inflammatory to get a reaction. Basically the print/magazine version of clickbait before that word was even invented.
“I was talking with Dvorak at the Vloggercon party this evening, and he started telling a story about how he deliberately pisses Mac users off to get flow for his stories…” – Dave Winer
Another way of looking at this is, stock value doesn't just not mean what reasonable people think it means - the meaning of prices is 200% wrong.
Another way of looking at this is, no one is going to be able to redeem all the Amazon stock there is for cash at this price, that only mark-to-market is wrong.
Another way of looking at this is, Jeff Bezos was happy doing what he was doing for peanuts throughout Amazon's early lifetime, so would wealth taxes or CEO compensation caps or whatever boogeyman really have dissuaded him from taking other people's money?
> Another way of looking at this is, no one is going to be able to redeem all the Amazon stock there is for cash at this price, that only mark-to-market is wrong.
Maybe, maybe not. Amazon’s daily trading volume is about 3 million shares, and there are around 500 million shares outstanding. In 150 days the entire market value of the company trades.
It would be weird if the whole thing was sold at once, but there would be people interested in buying. The company has real value.
A wealth tax would have limited the amount of early investment available to Amazon (and the start-up ecosystem as a whole), and it very well might have forced liquidation of shares at critical points in the company's early history when Bezos was wealthy on paper as an Amazon shareholder.
I still remember John C. Dvorak saying how awful amazon is and that it will never make money just ~10 years ago.