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Comment by myaso | Hacker News Reader

What about the Saudi King?

It's interesting to see how much Amazon can keep going. Bezos seems like the kind of person who can delegate responsibility extremely effectively -- is there a limit to this or will Amazon start being hobbled by it's own weight.

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I'd wager Amazon could keep growing for a long while. The worldwide market for e-commerce is nowhere near saturation point and the business model is by definition a recurring one. In addition, there are many adjacent markets to conquer.

But on e-commerce you have large regional players already. Japan, Korea?, India?, China, and probably Indonesia too. I find it hard to believe that Amazon will be able to conquer all or any of these. Saturation in what way? Total amount of goods purchased online increasing gradually over the years? As for for adjacent markets, ok fair enough -- but will they win in everything they try? I don't really think so -- and the more they take on the more Amazon as a whole will be strained.

Who leads Japan? Rakuten? They were first movers but Amazon has made huge share gains there in the last 10 years and they're in the common vernacular now. They outmaneuvered the publisher coalition and are now the only real e reader player in town. If there's a factor blocking Amazon from dominance there, it's the continued strength of brick and mortar powered by the high standard of service and support provided by those stores as well as strong infrastructure that prevents Amazon from developing competitive advantages with.

Yes I was referring to Rakuten -- there are a few more minor players. I'm working off limited data here -- so forgive me for using heuristic estimates. But yes, what are the odds of overcoming that advantage in your opinion? Japan is a odd case and extremely difficult to penetrate for outsiders, that level of insulation doesn't weight the odds in Amazon's favor or anybody else's coming in from the outside.

> What about the Saudi King?

About $17 billion (in 2016, sure, but probably hasn't gotten anywhere close to Bezos since; also, not even the richest member of the royal family.)

The Rothschild's are also not on this list. It's a rather pedestrian list of all non tax cheaters and non privacy aware mindsets.

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