Comment by spwa4
8 hours ago
People keep forgetting that the vast majority of billionnaire founders, including Musk, are good at finance. Not at anything else.
And Musk and Bezos' specialities are in the field of taking government subsidies. NOT making cars. NOT rockets. NOT delivery. NOT ...
So if you believe in them, you can bet money that they'll be able to attract more subsidies in the future. But buying a car from them is a bet that they produce good cars ... and it's just moronic.
The idea that Bezos' specialty is taking government subsidies and not ecommerce is hogwash..
Ecommerce itself involved exploiting government regulations around sales taxes. Amazon didn't charge sales tax for over a decade because it had no physical location outside of WA. That alone gave it a massive price advantage over every other retailer. When the laws finally caught up, many competitors had already closed down, the biggest of them being Circuit City and Borders.
Apparently 4.7 billion worth. https://www.vice.com/en/article/amazon-has-received-at-least...