What is Amazon?
On Point | Podcast
WBUR
4.2 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2023
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Federal Trade commission sued Amazon this week, accusing it of monopolistic practices. This episode from our archive explores how Amazon operates and what power it has. Brad Stone and Stacy Mitchell join Meghna Chakrabarti.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Okay. Brad, let's start with this. Is Amazon a retailer? |
| 0:10.0 | Well, if a retailer is a company that sells products or services to consumers, then yes, |
| 0:18.0 | Amazon is a retailer and quite a large one. |
| 0:20.0 | Okay. Is Amazon though they have AWS? Is it a web services company? |
| 0:27.5 | I suspect the answer to all these questions is going to be yes. |
| 0:31.0 | Amazon is a huge enterprise software company. |
| 0:34.0 | It's pioneered that market and it continues to lead it. |
| 0:39.0 | Okay. I'm going to keep asking a few more questions though. |
| 0:42.0 | Is it, we know about all the warehouses, the distribution centers, fulfillment, the trucks, |
| 0:48.0 | the airplanes. Is it a logistics company? |
| 0:51.5 | Magnifying years ago, I would have said no. |
| 0:54.0 | It is in large part reliant on other logistics companies like FedEx and UPS and the US Post Office. |
| 0:59.5 | Today, it is a logistics company and that has happened very quickly. |
| 1:03.0 | And you can see it when you look out your window or you drive city streets, Amazon vans and trucks are all over the place. |
| 1:09.0 | Okay. Interesting. So there are several sectors that maybe several years ago you would have said no, Amazon isn't that. |
| 1:16.0 | But now it is. So Brad, let's just cut to the chase. |
| 1:20.0 | If Amazon is all of these things, retailer, logistics, web services, manufacturer, you name it. |
| 1:28.0 | I mean, how do you, how do you define this company? |
| 1:32.0 | It's a really interesting question and it is, it is a challenging to it. |
| 1:36.0 | It's one of the reasons why Amazon I think is so beguiling and somewhat opaque as well. |
| 1:41.0 | It is almost a conglomerate, but unlike a Berkshire halfway or a general electric electric, all of the components are interlock. |
| 1:51.0 | There are very subtle connections between them. |
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