Sublime

Amazon is famously ruthless when it tries to expand its e-commerce empire. In 2009, Amazon noticed an up-and-coming online retail startup called Quidsi, which sold baby products on Diapers.com. Amazon sent an executive to have lunch with the Quidsi founders and offered to buy the company. The founders said no.[1440] But then Amazon started aggressi

The company had finally learned the tricks of the century-old trade that is modern retail. Profit margin is finite. Better financial terms with suppliers translate directly into a healthier bottom line—and create the foundation on which everyday low prices become possible.

As a result of Bezos’s meeting with Lore and Bharara, Amazon now had an exclusive three-week period to study Quidsi’s financial results and come up with a proposal. At the end of that period, Krawiec offered Quidsi $540 million and said that this was a “stretch price.” Knowing that Walmart hovered on the sidelines, he gave Quidsi a window of forty-

When Doerr asked about the volume of daily transactions, Bezos leaned over a computer and typed a grep command next to a UNIX prompt, instantly pulling up the data—and demonstrating his technical fluency. Doerr swooned.

Conscious Business.