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Amazon’s second problem is bloating. As Mr 7th paragraph
Bezos has expanded into industry after industry, his
firm has gone from being asset-light to having a bal-
ance-sheet heavier than a Soviet tractor factory. Today
it has $104bn of plant, including leased assets, not far
off the $119bn of its old-economy rival, Walmart. As a
result, returns excluding AWS are puny and the pan-
demic is squeezing margins in e-commerce further. Mr
Bezos says the firm can become more than the sum of
its parts by harvesting data and selling ads and sub-
scriptions. So far investors have taken this on trust. But
the weak e-commerce margins make it harder for Am-
azon to spin off AWS. This would get regulators off its
back and liberate AWS, but would deprive Amazon of
the money-machine that funds everything else.
Mr Bezos’s last worry is competition. He has 8th paragraph
long said that he watches customers, not competitors,
but he must have noticed how his rivals have been ener-
gised by the pandemic. Digital sales at Walmart, Target
and Costco probably doubled or more in April, year
on year. Independent digital firms are thriving. If you
create a stockmarket clone of Amazon lookalikes, in-
cluding Shopify, Netflix and UPS, it has outperformed
Amazon this year. In much of the world regional
competitors rule, not Amazon; among them are Mer-
cadoLibre in Latin America, Jio in India and Shopee
in South-East Asia. China is dominated by Alibaba,
JD.com and brash new contenders like Pinduoduo.

Imitation is the sincerest form of capitalism 9th paragraph
The world’s most admired business is thus left having
to solve several puzzles. If Amazon raises wages to pla-

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