Amazon: The Biggest Shining Example Of Innovation

image: entrepreneur.com

I've got a puzzle for you. Tell me the name of the company that:

1. is the largest ecommerce company in the world
2. is the largest audio book retailer in the world
3. is pioneering delivery of parcels with drones
4. owns the world's first no checkout no human required store
5. is the largest cloud service provider (bigger than Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, HP and all the other competitors in that space put together)
6. revolutonized the book publishing industry, making it possible for someone like me to publish a book in both hardcopy and ecopy with availability in over 100 countries at once without paying a dime upfront
7. gave us Alexa, that got Google and Apple and Microsoft scared and coming up with their own versions
8. is now giving Netflix a run for their money with PrimeVideo.com at $2.99/month and available in over 200 countries (I have signed up)
9. made it possible to have an android app store on BlackBerry OS 10
10. is the everything store

You are right! That company is Amazon.

Every month, a company or a division of a company dies because of Amazon. They got wiped out by brilliant innovation that they can't catch up with.

Even Google is having a hard time catching up with Amazon in the newest technology frontier -- cloud services. Amazon solidly has that space, started when no one else was paying attention, in 2006. Then in 2013 everyone started noticing but they were too late. Microsoft, IBM, Google, Cisco, HP, Rackspace, VMWare. They put in the money and hired the brainiest. But like Warren Buffet says, "You cannot have a baby in one month by impregnating nine women". Some things just take time. And when you are late, you are late. Only Microsoft is getting some action to its corner, the others are just bleeding cash and gradually giving up. It is a highly capital intensive industry and requires the craziest highest level of technology. You just can't catch up by throwing money at it. You are either on time or out of the game.

Now Amazon is starting the chapter on the death of retail stores as we know them. They have opened a fully automated retail store. You walk in pick up whatever you want to buy and walk out without queuing at some time wasting cashier stand. There are intelligent cameras everywhere that link your face with your Amazon account and keep a record of what you picked and took out of the store, billing you automatically.

Amazon is probably the new Apple. Changing industries and lives in amazing ways. Thinking and doing what no one is bold enough to do. And giving the competition mud on their face.