Running out of money by only spending on R&D and having your share price drop below listing thresholds, I think, is the implication.

Yeah, I don't think you'd even have to run out of money. There are plenty of companies generating a fair amount of cash flow that hover in the dangerous territory of < $3 a share. It only takes one bad quarter.

Here's an example of a company that generates cash but only recently is in the safe-ish territory:

https://finance.google.com/finance?q=LLNW

(Not that I think they are emulating Amazon, mind you, just making the point that you can have a going concern, and still get delisted.)

More broadly, unless you have an amazing business, you probably shouldn't emulate Amazon (or Google, or FB, or any other business that is depending on free cash flow to fund R&D as opposed to generating profits).

> the dangerous territory of < $3 a share.

that's only dangerous until the stock does a reverse split.

Share price doesn't dictate how much money they have. Amazon makes buttloads of money; they just choose to use it rather than give it back as dividends.

No. That wasn't implied either. Conversely, net profits do tend to be a positive indicator of share price.

It's also incorrect to say that AMZN "makes buttloads of money", with sub-1 EPS[1] at a nearly $1,000 share price.

[1] https://finance.google.co.uk/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AAMZN&fstype=...

Just shy of $38 billion in one quarter revenue is "Buttloads of money". I wasn't necessarily relating it to the share price.