Well they've been given a pass for approximately 18 out of their 20 year existence, split into two segments of time.
There was a two year period of time after the dotcom crash was over where they were beaten on pretty heavily about the lack of profitability.
It really doesn't matter if investors beat the drums frankly. Bezos controls enough of Amazon's stock - roughly three times the next largest investor - it would be difficult to spar with him, short of the stock truly plunging (something like a 75% drop from here might do it). The Bezos family controls roughly as much stock as the next five largest owners combined.
The correct answer is: so long as Amazon's sales continue to grow at ... 15% to 25% per year, and the losses do not become life threatening again, the drums will never get loud enough to disrupt what Bezos wants to do.
I expect with a $100b +/- market cap, Amazon can continue to function without much external concern for quite some time. $100b or so mostly keeps them out of range of someone trying to buy them, and will enable continued acquisitions as needed, while not bashing shareholders too much on the downside such that everyone turns against Bezos. I see no reason they can't maintain that perpetually with zero profits, if sales continue to grow, given the sales scale they're likely to reach in the next decade. They will be given a serious sales multiple so long as sales keep growing relatively quickly. Investors will focus on that and be placated by the kool-aid. When sales growth stops, investors will shift to demanding profits and dividends.
There would have to be some catastrophic setbacks, big losses, and a pause in sales growth, to force Bezos into changing his approach. I suspect at that point he would step aside and become just chairman.
However, keep in mind, Amazon would love to have a cash cow. They'd love nothing more than to print up $4 billion per year in profit from the fire phone, or from their new advertising initiative. So they can show profits, boom the stock, and perpetually run a tight margin business everywhere else.
I think you have it all right except for the end. If Amazon made an extra 4 billion dollars a year they would use it to attempt to dominate yet another market. There are businesses inside the company that do make profit and they are already reinvested into longer term seed projects.
There was a two year period of time after the dotcom crash was over where they were beaten on pretty heavily about the lack of profitability.
It really doesn't matter if investors beat the drums frankly. Bezos controls enough of Amazon's stock - roughly three times the next largest investor - it would be difficult to spar with him, short of the stock truly plunging (something like a 75% drop from here might do it). The Bezos family controls roughly as much stock as the next five largest owners combined.
The correct answer is: so long as Amazon's sales continue to grow at ... 15% to 25% per year, and the losses do not become life threatening again, the drums will never get loud enough to disrupt what Bezos wants to do.
I expect with a $100b +/- market cap, Amazon can continue to function without much external concern for quite some time. $100b or so mostly keeps them out of range of someone trying to buy them, and will enable continued acquisitions as needed, while not bashing shareholders too much on the downside such that everyone turns against Bezos. I see no reason they can't maintain that perpetually with zero profits, if sales continue to grow, given the sales scale they're likely to reach in the next decade. They will be given a serious sales multiple so long as sales keep growing relatively quickly. Investors will focus on that and be placated by the kool-aid. When sales growth stops, investors will shift to demanding profits and dividends.
There would have to be some catastrophic setbacks, big losses, and a pause in sales growth, to force Bezos into changing his approach. I suspect at that point he would step aside and become just chairman.
However, keep in mind, Amazon would love to have a cash cow. They'd love nothing more than to print up $4 billion per year in profit from the fire phone, or from their new advertising initiative. So they can show profits, boom the stock, and perpetually run a tight margin business everywhere else.