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Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

Maybe that's just what happens to companies that have been around a long time. They go on maintenance mode. You don't see coke or visa innovating much either.

It seems like optimizing for innovation makes sense with new upstart products and optimizing for maintenance makes more sense with established products.

You started with if Amazon wants change and I think that's exactly what a product with a position of relative market dominance doesn't want

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Smart companies (I have no idea if Amazon is "smart" or not) are always innovating. However, most of the innovation will be internal. I used to work for a large corp that owned 80% of its main market and we were always encouraged to seek new ways of doing things and to file as many patents as possible. They were smart enough to realize that they got where they were by being innovative and that no matter how much of the market they controlled, they couldn't stay there by standing still.

That would make sense, except Amazon stock's PE is currently around 50, which means that it's priced like a highly innovative company with large growth potential. So, if management doesn't want a massive stock price drop (and they obviously don't), they have to structure the company as if it's innovative and high-growth, to sell a believable story to the stock market.

> You don't see coke or visa innovating much either.

Both exist in industries that aren’t innovating much. Amazon doesn’t enjoy such a luxury.

OP's description isn't exactly "optimizing for maintenance" either!

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