Latest news with #AndyJassy
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
3 Things to Know About Amazon Stock Before You Buy
Despite its massive size, with 2024 sales of $638 billion, Amazon should be able to grow revenue at a healthy pace for the foreseeable future. Companies with economic moats are a rarity, let alone those that have multiple competitive strengths working in their favor. CEO Andy Jassy has focused on driving operational efficiencies, which are showing up on the bottom line. 10 stocks we like better than Amazon › Everyone knows about Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). It's one of the most dominant, innovative, and disruptive enterprises that the world has ever seen. Today, it sports a monster market cap of $2.2 trillion, making it one of the most valuable companies out there. Amazon has done a fantastic job of rewarding its perennial investors. Shares are up 853% in the past decade and 11,290% in the past 20 years (as of May 28). Even after such an incredible performance, the "Magnificent Seven" stock might still be a worthy portfolio addition today, especially since it trades 15% off its peak. Here are three things that investors need to know about Amazon before they buy. Between 2021 and 2024, Amazon's revenue increased by 36%. And according to Wall Street consensus analyst estimates, the top line will grow by 31% between 2024 and 2027. This is despite the business collecting a whopping $638 billion in sales last year. There is still meaningful growth potential. Amazon is well positioned to ride the wave of four potent secular trends. Of course, there's online shopping and the ongoing rise of e-commerce. But the company should also be able to continue leveraging its strong competitive positions in cloud computing with Amazon Web Services (AWS), digital advertising, and artificial intelligence (AI). Because Amazon's performance will be influenced by these tailwinds, I wouldn't be surprised if Wall Street's revenue forecast over the next three years proves conservative. Warren Buffett is an investing legend who loves to own businesses that have an economic moat. This just means that a company possesses durable competitive advantages that make it difficult for rivals to effectively compete in an industry. Amazon stands out because it has multiple factors working to its benefit. For starters, the business has a powerful network effect, specifically with its marketplace. As more buyers go to the site to shop, sellers find the platform more valuable. In turn, this attracts more buyers because the product selection keeps expanding. Plus, the Prime membership option perpetuates this positive feedback loop, as Prime customers are sticky and might spend more. There's also a cost advantage that stems partly from Amazon's sprawling logistics footprint. Dense delivery routes keep shipping expenses low. And with its scale and sales base, the business also has buying power over suppliers. Switching cost is another important competitive advantage, this one for AWS. Enterprise customers depend on Amazon as an IT partner, which will become truer as adoption of AI tools grows. These customers won't want the hassle of changing providers. Investors can point to Amazon's wide economic moat as proof that this is an extremely high-quality company. There is minimal threat of disruption, which reduces risk. Amazon has historically focused on growing the top line at a brisk pace. Shareholders bought into management's strategy because they knew the business was investing aggressively in new growth vectors. This has worked, as demonstrated by the company's huge scale. However, CEO Andy Jassy is figuring out ways to boost profitability, which is encouraging for investors. He wants to boost operational efficiencies and expense controls. As a result, operating income went from $24.9 billion in 2021 to $68.6 billion in 2024. While investors probably appreciate seeing profitability continue to improve, the best course of action for Amazon's long-term success is for the leadership team to properly invest in opportunities to grow the intrinsic value of the business over time. In other words, Amazon's true earnings power is still untapped. Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $651,049!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $828,224!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 979% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Neil Patel has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Things to Know About Amazon Stock Before You Buy was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Shares 3 Reminders To Stay Sane As A Leader
Andy Jassy's advice is applicable to leader's mental health. When Andy Jassy transitioned into the CEO role at Amazon, he didn't just inherit one of the most complex businesses on the planet. He stepped into an identity shift that would challenge even the most seasoned leaders. Much like Greg Abel stepping in for Warren Buffett soon, Jassy follows an iconic figure whose shadow looms large. The stakes are high, the spotlight brighter, and the pressures heavier. In a recent interview on How Leaders Lead, Jassy reflected on working alongside Jeff Bezos and shared the key lessons he learned while stepping into the top role. Jassy's advice was framed around achieving operational excellence, but there's a deeper, often overlooked takeaway: these same strategies are also valuable safeguards for leaders' mental resilience and burnout prevention. For CEOs managing high-stakes decisions, nonstop demands, and the quiet weight of personal responsibilities, Jassy's three pieces of advice offer a foundational framework to protect your clarity, capacity, and composure at the top. You don't need to be at the helm of one of the world's largest companies to feel the creeping weight of fragmentation. The higher you go, the more in demand you become, and the easier it is to let core pieces of yourself fall to the side. As Jassy put it: "You have to massively delegate to be successful. When you have 25 businesses across the company, you can't be in the weekly rhythms of each business. It doesn't scale for the businesses—or for you, or the company." Delegation may sound like a simple concept, but it's often the least utilized by leaders nearing the edge of burnout. A recent global survey of over 10,000 leaders found that delegation is the most valuable yet underutilized tool for avoiding exhaustion and decision fatigue. Refusing to delegate is a fast track to complexity overload. CEOs who carry too much eventually collapse under the weight. Delegation isn't just a leadership tool; it's a form of mental triage that protects your capacity to stay sharp. Power shifts change dynamics—sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. When leaders move up, even long-standing relationships are tested or transformed. Jassy learned this firsthand: "I knew all the people who were going to report to me because I was on the senior leadership team with them for many years. I had good relationships with virtually all of them. I didn't think it was going to be that big a deal moving into the new job. But what happened was every single relationship reset." Some relationships reset quickly. Others never did. That's not necessarily a failure. It's a natural part of growth. Trying to maintain everything the same after a promotion, or even just growing personally, can create emotional friction. It slows your momentum and ties you to obsolete expectations. Resetting relationships can be a relief. It clears the invisible pressure of maintaining false harmony. With executive stress already running high, the emotional bandwidth you preserve by letting go of unreciprocated rapport and other drainers becomes critical. Leadership walks a fine line between confidence and humility. The temptation to appear unflappable is strong, especially at the top. But pretending to know everything is not a strength. It's a liability. Jassy encouraged leaders to balance humility with instinct: "At almost every leadership level, when you step up, you want to have some humility and respect for what you don't know and what you have to learn. You can also sometimes have maybe too much respect for it." He went on: "There were some things that seemed a little bit off to me. It was a good reminder that you just have to trust your own instincts and your gut sometimes. And even if you're wrong, people will show you why you're wrong—and it's OK." The danger lies not in being wrong, but in silencing your judgment out of fear. CEOs who ignore their instincts out of doubt often become anxious, uncertain, and misaligned. Their executive presence suffers, and their teams feel it. Doubt drains your energy. Clarity, however imperfect, keeps you moving. Andy Jassy's reflections weren't just tactical advice for new CEOs and others making organizational transitions. They were foundational emotional survival strategies in disguise. As much as leaders manage people and businesses, they also manage themselves. Whether it's the clarity that comes from the necessary delegation, the emotional freedom that comes from resetting relationships, or the quiet confidence that comes from trusting your gut, Jassy's lessons offer more than guidance. They offer a way to lead without losing yourself in the process.
Business Insider
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Amazon's secret 'Bend the Curve' project purges billions of product listings from the Everything Store
Call it an " Everything Store," just without the clutter. Amazon has been getting rid of billions of product listings deemed "unproductive" through a confidential project called "Bend the Curve," according to an internal planning document obtained by Business Insider. The document reveals that Amazon planned to remove at least 24 billion ASINs, or unique product listings, from its marketplace. These underperforming items range from poor-selling items to those with misleading descriptions or inactive pages. "Reduce active ASINs in the Amazon Catalog to be less than 50B (projected to be 74B by EOY 2024) by cleaning up unproductive selection," the document stated, giving a deadline of December 2024. Bend the Curve is part of a broader cost-cutting strategy led by CEO Andy Jassy, who took the helm in 2021. Eliminating billions of product listings helps Amazon's retail business control cloud costs as it doesn't have to host as many product pages online. The initiative is notable for Amazon, which has spent 3 decades relentlessly expanding its product catalog in pursuit of a limitless online marketplace — a strategy that earned it the nickname "The Everything Store." Amazon is still growing its vast selection, but the company is putting more focus on removing low-performing or inaccurate listings in favor of a more streamlined and effective catalog. Striking a tricky balance Having almost infinite selection means shoppers are more likely to find what they're looking for on Amazon, increasing the chances they buy something, and return again. That's been a powerful advantage over physical retail stores, which can only stock so much. Amazon is highly unlikely to give up the benefits of this massive product selection. However, some of the company's digital aisles have become cluttered and outdated in recent years, which could confuse or frustrate shoppers. Striking a balance between these two goals could be tricky, and Bend the Curve has been hotly debated internally, according to a person familiar with the project. Some Amazon shoppers may already be noticing. According to Evercore ISI's annual online retail survey, fewer respondents believe Amazon offers the best product selection. In 2022, a record-high 84% of respondents gave Amazon top marks for selection. That figure fell to 79% in 2023, and declined further to 68% last year, marking a record low in the survey's 12-year history. "Phasing out items" In an email to BI, Amazon's spokesperson said the company will continue to expand its active product listings. The initiative is intended to clean up data, not curtail selection, the spokesperson said, adding Amazon added millions of new items to its product catalog last year. "We have a cost-reduction initiative in place to remove unhelpful data, including product listings that are inaccurate, incomplete, or in other ways fail to meet our listing requirements," the spokesperson told BI. "The aim is not to reduce active product listings." The number of "active ASINs" does not correspond exactly with the actual product selection visible to customers, and reducing that number doesn't always equate to a reduction in selection. "Unproductive selection" includes items that can't be purchased, for instance, if there's no actual inventory to support a listing, or if product listings haven't been updated for more than two years, the spokesperson explained. "Our teams regularly review product listings based on performance, quality, and evolving customer needs — and we've done this for many years," the spokesperson added. "In some cases, it may involve phasing out items that no longer meet our standards or are being replaced by newer versions. The goal is always to refine, not restrict, selection, ensuring our shopping experience meets the highest standards." The spokesperson added that there was "no debate in the sense of whether to proceed" with the Bend the Curve project. "Leadership made clear throughout the process that the work should not, even by accident, negatively impact selling partners or remove selection from Amazon, and we put guardrails in place to ensure that didn't happen," the spokesperson added. 'Throttling' listings For years, Amazon has simplified the process of becoming a seller on its platform. These third-party merchants are now responsible for more than 60% of all products sold on Amazon. Amazon believes that growing the number of third-party sellers and expanding product selection fuel a flywheel: more choices lead to happier customers, attract more shoppers, and ultimately drive continued growth. In Amazon's 1999 shareholder letter, founder Jeff Bezos envisioned a place where people could "come to find and discover anything and everything they might want to buy online." However, Amazon's drive to create a limitless aisle of products has come with challenges. The platform has faced issues with counterfeit goods, expired food items, and non-compliant products, leading to consumer complaints and regulatory scrutiny. Amazon has taken many steps to tackle counterfeit goods in the past. And with Bend the Curve, Amazon is putting other controlling measures in place. In 2024, Amazon launched a new "creation throttling" feature that blocks new product listings from some underperforming seller accounts, the internal document showed. The company targeted at least 12,000 active sellers with catalogs of more than 100,000 product listings and no sales in the previous 12 months as part of the program, according to the document. This enforcement prevented more than 110 million new listings from being created, while nearly 3,000 sellers got warning messages for being close to the throttling threshold. The document said some of the sellers exited enforcement by modifying their listings or increasing their sales. The initiative "promoted significant catalog cleanup," it added. Bend the Curve also led to confusion among some sellers regarding the policy's scope. According to the document, only "unproductive" accounts were affected. However, some sellers with multiple accounts mistakenly believed that their entire accounts were being blocked from creating new listings. In response, Amazon is focusing this year on more clearly "defining policy enforcement and communication" to avoid misunderstandings, the document said. The company is also analyzing deleted listings to determine if there are identifiable patterns. 'Cost avoidance' By removing or streamlining unproductive listings, Bend the Curve saved more than $22 million in AWS server costs in 2024, the document said. Amazon projected an additional $36 million in AWS server "cost avoidance" in 2025 as the initiative continues. Amazon's retail division expected to spend approximately $5.7 billion on AWS cloud infrastructure in 2025, a 27% increase from last year's $4.5 billion, according to another internal planning document obtained by BI. That's a slower growth rate compared to the previous year, when AWS server costs rose 36% from about $3.3 billion in 2023.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
4 Monster Stocks to Buy Right Now and Hold for 20 Years
Amazon and Shopify are two different kinds of e-commerce businesses that both have incredible models and tons of opportunity. MercadoLibre is a tech disruptor in Latin America, an underpenetrated region. SoFi represents the future of banking in the U.S. 10 stocks we like better than Amazon › Market volatility over the past few months could lead investors to sell and take their winnings home before things get worse. But investing success means riding out the short-term waves and holding on to long-term winners. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) has already made up whatever it lost in value earlier this year, and it would have been a shame to have sold at a low and missed out on the quick rebound. If you can hold on for at least 20 years, you can choose excellent stocks and let them work their magic on your investments. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP), MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI), and SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI) are four monster stocks that should reward you well over the next 20 years. Amazon is the leader in e-commerce and cloud computing, two massive growth industries. It has about 40% of the U.S. market share in e-commerce and about 30% of the global market for cloud computing. Both of these industries are growing organically, and Amazon is benefiting from these organic tailwinds. Shoppers know Amazon as the king of e-commerce, and the company is heavily investing in keeping its lead there. But management has identified generative artificial intelligence (AI), primarily through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-computing business, as its main growth driver over the next few years. Amazon said it would invest upwards of $100 billion in 2025 alone to keep building out this business, and it offers a huge assortment of features and tools to every size and stripe of client. AWS itself generated a 17% year-over-year increase in sales in the first quarter and has a $117 billion annualized revenue run rate. Management expects that with generative AI, that rate will increase. "We thought AWS had the chance to ultimately be a multihundred-billion-dollar revenue run rate business," CEO Andy Jassy recently said of the pre-generative AI opportunity. "We now think it could be even larger." Advertising and streaming continue to grow and add value to the business, and Amazon is investing in new concepts like Zoox autonomous vehicles and Project Kuiper broadband. It has a huge growth runway, and its stock should keep rewarding investors over many years. You won't see Shopify on any list of highest e-commerce sales because it doesn't sell products, it sells e-commerce services, like websites and payment processing. But its gross merchandise volume (GMV) is similar to Amazon's e-commerce sales, giving you a picture of Shopify's important and dominant position in the e-commerce space. Shopify is also benefiting from the organic tailwinds of e-commerce growing as a percentage of retail sales. According to eMarketer, e-commerce accounted for 20.3% of retail sales in 2024, and that's expected to increase to 23% by 2027. Even that's still a small percentage, and with each percentage point translating into trillions of dollars, Shopify has a long growth runway. It also continues to identify new ways to expand its market share and help its clients increase their sales. It has gone from a platform helping small businesses get online to targeting large businesses with individual e-commerce components. It offers a full-service omnichannel platform combining physical and digital retail, and it's making a bigger move into international, where there are several bigger players. International sales only accounted for 30% of the total in Q1, and that could be a huge growth driver in the coming years. Patient investors should expect Shopify to be a top stock as it keeps growing and innovating for the foreseeable future. MercadoLibre is similar to Amazon in that its core business is e-commerce, but it has dipped its toes into several other businesses that are driving fantastic growth. It operates in Latin America and offers a host of digital services in both e-commerce and financial technology. It consistently reports strong growth across metrics, such as a 40% increase in GMV year over year and a 72% increase in total payment volume in the 2025 first quarter. The opportunity here is enormous because Latin America lags many other global regions in both e-commerce and digital penetration. In fact, 85% of sales are still offline, and some of its regions are underbanked, leading to a greater necessity for digital financial services. Because its regions are still in their early innings in its industries, there are so many levers MercadoLibre can pull to move growth. It's doing so step by step, bringing in new, unique visitors to its ecosystem and generating higher purchase frequency. It's launching all sorts of innovative services, such as a new, free streaming initiative powered by its growing ad business. MercadoLibre has a wide-open runway and tons of opportunities to grow its business and stock gains. SoFi is a digital financial disruptor offering all banking services online. It targets the young professional who's just starting their financial journey and appreciates SoFi's tech focus and easy-to-use interface. Although its core business is lending, it has successfully expanded into a large array of financial services like bank accounts and investing tools. These are fee-based products that have low costs and are becoming incredibly profitable. Even the lending business is bouncing back as interest rates go lower, and lending revenue increased 25% year over year in Q1. Financial services, though, more than doubled, and contribution profit increased 299%. It's adding members at a high rate and generating higher engagement through cross-selling and upselling, and SoFi has a massive growth opportunity over the next 20 years as it gets closer to its ambition of becoming a top-10 U.S. bank. Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $653,389!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $830,492!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 982% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jennifer Saibil has positions in MercadoLibre and SoFi Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, MercadoLibre, and Shopify. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 4 Monster Stocks to Buy Right Now and Hold for 20 Years was originally published by The Motley Fool
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Amazon's car software deal with Stellantis is ending, report says
Amazon's (AMZN) partnership with Stellantis (STLA) to build car software that was supposed to create 'a sustainable, software-defined future' of driving is 'winding down,' Reuters confirmed on Wednesday. The companies told Reuters in a joint statement that 'Stellantis remains a valuable partner for Amazon' and they will continue to work together, but jointly decided to end work on the SmartCockpit technology. Amazon and Stellantis announced the collaboration in January 2022, saying that the auto giant's SmartCockpit system would rely on Amazon technology and was set to launch in 2024. The companies did not provide a reason for the dissolution of their partnership. Stellantis, the maker of Jeep, Fiat, Dodge, Chrysler, and Alfa Romeo, among others, said at the time its vehicles would 'deploy Amazon's technology' that would build connected in-vehicle experiences synchronized with Amazon's home products. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said at the time the project would 'transform the automotive industry and re-invent the in-vehicle experience.' While some tech companies, including Google (GOOGL) and Apple (AAPL), have managed to successfully integrate their software into cars, Amazon's collaboration with Stellantis was the first of its kind for the Washington-based e-commerce giant. Stellantis also announced the appointment of a new CEO, Antonio Filosa, on Wednesday. Its stock was down about 1%, and Amazon stock was up 0.58% just after the markets opened. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
