Let’s play a game.
We’ll call it the “what if” game.
What if you owned a massive company.
And then the pandemic hit.
You see businesses closing left and right all around you.
You ignore all of that, walk to one of your managers and say, loudly (because let’s be honest, you’re a bada**)
“Hire 250,000 MORE PEOPLE.” - you yell!
That’s exactly what Jeff Bezos and Amazon did this year during the pandemic.
In fact, like the title of this letter, they now have over ONE MILLION employees.
Wow.
This is even more impressive when you put it in its historical context….
The CBS article goes on to say..
Even so, Amazon's explosive growth underscores the historic shift in financial might from manufacturers such as General Motors, U.S. Steel and General Electric. In the 1950s, these three corporations were the country's biggest employers, with a combined workforce of more than 1 million employees at the time. Today, the three employ about 400,000 workers as the U.S. economy has shed factory jobs in favor of service-oriented work.
So we’ve gone from big, “traditional” companies like GE, U.S. Steel, and GM, employing 1 million combined, to AMAZON employing that many and the other 3 only employing 400k…
It’s a seismic shift, I think this little picture might put it into even more perspective.
As you can see, once the snowball starts really rolling with a company like Amazon, it starts to get EXPONENTIAL… fast…
I wrote in the letter yesterday that humans have a really hard time understanding exponentials…
It’s just something we’re not really good at (see paper folding example).
And I think this picture above illustrates that.
People have been underestimating Amazon for a long, long time, and we’re definitely still underestimating it NOW.
As many of you know, Amazon accounts for well over 50% of all ONLINE sales in the US (as of 2020).
What is CRAZY is what I highlighted in black below.
As of 2018…
Amazon only accounted for 5% of TOTAL RETAIL SALES…
That’s because ONLINE SALES still haven’t really exploded yet…
In fact, even AFTER COVID, in the 2nd quarter, we only had 16.1% of the sales online!!!
How crazy is that???
You don’t have to be a genius to see where this is headed..
People are creatures of habit.
And COVID WRECKED ALL HABITS.
Now all bets are off.
I fully expect Amazon to take a MASSIVE chunk out of the TOTAL RETAIL SALES BASKET over the next 10 years.
It’s kind of like this…
Most people picture Amazon as dominant.
The big massive SHARK in the swimming pool of online sales….
However, it’s kind of like that shark just JUMPED out of the swimming pool…
And started swimming in the clear blue OCEAN of OVERALL RETAIL SALES….
That shark is HUNGRY.
He’s going to MULTIPLY.
And take over that ocean.
Underestimating him would be a very, VERY, stupid thing to do.
See you tomorrow!
Kale
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1 million employees (& counting)