Eager To See Ahead, Amazon Carries The FTC On Its Back For The Search

Delivery robots that will “spring out” of vans, a $10B AI data center in North Carolina, and surely more in the coming weeks. What you’ve read is just a sampling of the stories that found their way into news about Amazon recently. It’s trying to discover a business future that will assuredly look nothing like the present.

It all raises a question: why is Amazon doing so much, trying so much, and spending so much? It’s already one of the rare noun, verb and adjectives of commerce, and according to the FTC, it’s a “monopoly.” What’s the point of spending enormous sums on the future when the future is allegedly already secure?

The answer to the questions posed is that Amazon has no choice. While the FTC is constrained by the known, and operates as though online shopping is the frontier of e-commerce, Amazon’s executives recognize that the only way it can remain relevant is through discovery of what will eclipse what makes it appear so impregnable in the eyes of a sight-limited FTC in the present. It’s a scary concept. For Amazon.

Against all odds, Jeff Bezos discovered a tomorrow of retail that was roundly dismissed by the powers-that-be of retailing (including Walmart) in the 1990s. Amazon was a niche concept seemingly for shut-ins. The normal among us would always prefer to buy books in a store, around other people, and while physically holding the books. Same with CDs and DVDs. Hopefully readers see where this is going.

Hard as it is to remember, Amazon’s ascent from bookseller to one of the most prominent commercial names ever was the epitome of unlikely. No one thought Bezos et al had a chance. If you doubt this, check out Bezos’s net worth and Amazon’s market cap of roughly $2.2 trillion. Markets are way too efficient for established businesses to let a $2.2 billion business concept pass, let alone one that can be measured in trillions of dollars. What Bezos et al saw, they saw uniquely.

Which hopefully explains Amazon’s frenzied experimentation in the present. To remain Amazon, executives at the Seattle giant must somehow discover what’s next. Ok, so what’s next?

In contemplating what’s ahead, it’s useful to backtrack to the FTC. To say that the Commission is looking backwards insults understatement. At the same time, it speaks to the difference between regulators who imagine tomorrow will look the same as today, and businesses with shareholders for whom the relentless demand is that executives see 5, 10 and 15 years into the commercial future.

In other words, for Amazon to yet again remain Amazon, it must execute another miracle the scope of which measures up to its profound transformation of how we shop. Easy? Words won’t be wasted answering such a question.

In truth, there’s no need to answer the question. Instead, readers can simply scan the Amazon stories in the news now, and beyond. They’re not committing large sums to various projects because they know what’s ahead, but because they don’t. What pays for all this experimentation is the past successes that the FTC is focused on.

In Amazon’s case, it doesn’t have the luxury of looking backwards. Which means it will carry an oblivious FTC on its back as it strives at great cost to see into the future. The irony is that the FTC is blind to the meaning of such substantial investment from Amazon, the very investment that thoroughly discredits the FTC’s case.