Last week, when watching Amazon unveil a fresh lineup of Kindles
and Kindle Fire Tablets, it occurred to me that few people have
changed how we purchase goods as much as Jeff Bezos, the CEO and
founder of
Amazon.com (
AMZN
)
, has.
The company now thoroughly dominates the e-commerce landscape
and is shaking traditional big box retailers, like
Best Buy (
BBY
)
, to their very core. If that wasn't enough, AMZN is also quickly
making inroads in the tablet market against Apple's incredibly
profitable products, while it is also taking aim at
Netflix (
NFLX
)
by offering a streaming video service as well.
Meanwhile, the company is also supposedly developing a phone
which could help it to compete with
Apple (
AAPL
)
again and especially
Google (
GOOG
)
. This could leave the
search giant in a rough spot
, especially if Amazon continues to peel away sales dollars from
advertisers who see their customers forgo Google searches for
queries directly on Amazon.com instead (read
Three Great Tech ETFs that Avoid Apple
).
Seemingly, Amazon is taking on all the biggest names in tech and
it is doing so with a relatively risky strategy of loss leading
products, such as selling Kindles below cost and giving customers
absurd values in the 'Prime' service with two day shipping, free
books, and streaming for $80/year. While this might be questionable
in the long-term, one thing is for sure, it has greatly reduced the
cost to customers, improved quality/choice, and it has irreversibly
changed how many Americans buy not only books and groceries, but
how they think about retail in general (see
the Guide to Retail ETFs
).
Yet despite this contribution, Bezos is rarely mentioned among
legendary company managers like Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett and
is instead, largely overlooked, at least in my opinion. Even
upstarts such as Mark Zuckerberg or leaders of (relatively)
unimportant companies like Yahoo! with Marissa Mayer, receive more
press than Bezos, a mind-boggling situation if you ask me.
With that being said, it probably doesn't help that the stock
isn't much of a value at this point, as the company has a forward
PE of 336 and a Zacks Rank of 3 or Hold. Meanwhile, the earnings
trend isn't exactly favorable, while the firm is also expected to
post a loss for the current quarter.
Still, while the company might not be a great investment at this
time, it is hard to argue that Bezos is a transformative CEO that
doesn't really get the credit he deserves for reshaping the
American economy in his own image, a situation that is becoming
increasingly puzzling as Kindles become more ubiquitous across the
American landscape…
What do you think? Do you agree that Bezos is the most
underrated CEO in America?
Or is there another person more deserving of this honor?
Let us know what you think in the comments below!
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