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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (83730)	11/9/1999 8:14:00 PM
From: Eric Wells	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

William - the future is uncertain. I read the first two paragraphs of your message as implying the following logic: America Online suffered large losses in its infancy and now it is a very profitable company, therefore Amazon, by suffering large losses in its infancy, will one day be a very profitable company. There are certainly a number of companies that spent a lot of money on what many considered to be wise investments and in doing so suffered tremendous losses in their infancy - and eventually went bankrupt. So, in the first two paragraphs of your message, all you're really saying is that "there is a chance Amazon will be successful". I agree, there is a chance. I think we probably differ in our estimation of that chance. As for Amazon building the 16th most recognized brand on the planet - granted, that much is impressive. But I don't think anyone really understands the impact and the dynamics of retail brands on the internet at this point in time. In my view, one could make a very plausible argument that internet time may have just as much impact on retail brands as it does on most everything else - that in the short time that Amazon built it's brand image, it could quite possibly lose it. How? Through price competition and low customer switching costs. You don't know, and I don't know, the future of Amazon. It's uncertain. Yet, I feel there is one thing that is certain - that there is very little uncertainty built into Amazon's stock price. AMZN is priced as though the future is certain. This is especially evident when the stock goes up 20% on the announcement of an announcement - everyone was so certain that the announcement was going to be earth-shattering. But the failure of some investors to account for uncertainty certainly caused some people to lose money today. -Eric

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (83730)	11/10/1999 9:45:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

ic, If you keeping lumping all of Amazon's spending together like it's involuntary losses, you'll never understand what's going on. America Online first acrued $1 billion in losses (more than Amazon has to date) on the way to its $150 current billion market cap. William, You insist on comparing Amazon to AOL. Amazon is not even close to AOL in the type of business model. I am going to puke if I hear that comparison again. It is old and getting older. Glenn