Jeff Bezos says ‘Amazon will fail’ one day

Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos.
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty
Images

• Jeff Bezos told Amazon employees that he predicts “one
  day Amazon will fail,” according to a recording of an internal
  meeting heard by CNBC.
• Bezos added that Amazon’s job is to delay failure for
  as long as possible by focussing on its customers.
• Amazon staffers told CNBC that issues such as
  government regulation and potential antitrust violations worry
  them.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made a stunning admission last week in an
all-hands meeting, a recording of which was
heard by CNBC.

With the company valued at just shy of $1 trillion and Bezos
being the richest man in modern history, the Amazon CEO said his
24-year-old firm is far from invincible.

Read more:

Creditors urge Sears to shut down all its stores, calling its
plan for survival “wishful thinking”

“Amazon is not too big to fail… In fact, I predict one day
Amazon will fail. Amazon will go bankrupt. If you look at large
companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a
hundred-plus years,” Bezos reportedly said when addressing a
question about Sears recently going bankrupt.

While history shows that no empire lasts forever, it is unusual
for any CEO — particularly a boss of one of the world’s most
successful companies — to talk down their firm in such
unvarnished terms.

Bezos said the goal was to delay the inevitable for as long as
possible — and the way to do that was to focus on customers.

“If we start to focus on ourselves, instead of focusing on our
customers, that will be the beginning of the end… We have to
try and delay that day for as long as possible,” he said.

Several Amazon employees who spoke to CNBC on condition of
anonymity said government regulation and potential antitrust
violations are “big concerns” when they look to the future of the
company.

“It’s a fact that we’re a large company,” Bezos said in the
recording heard by CNBC. “It’s reasonable for large institutions
of any kind, whether it be companies or governments, to be
scrutinized.”

Amazon
this week announced it is going to expand into two new
locations for its second headquarters, dubbed “HQ2,” which
will mean an increase of roughly 50,000 employees.

Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request
for comment.