Re:DoorDash S-1
by pointcloud on Friday November 13, 2020 @03:08PM
(#25086851)
Amazon actually launched restaurant delivery 5 years ago, and shut it down last year.
I didn't know that, thanks for sharing. A quick Google search reveals that in that same year Amazon led a $575 round in Deliveroo. Seems like I picked the wrong example, and in this case Amazon correctly identified the opportunity but failed in the execution. Makes me just realize how much credit the DoorDash team really deserves.
Re:DoorDash S-1
by Judgmentality on Friday November 13, 2020 @05:03PM
(#25088052)
> Amazon correctly identified the opportunity but failed in the execution
Everyone failed in execution because nobody has done it profitably yet. Maybe the opportunity doesn't actually exist?
From elsewhere in this thread:
> In the first 3 quarters of 2020, Doordash has $131 million loss on $1.9 billion revenue
If a startup starting from 0 can pull that off, Amazon should have been able to do (even) better with their customer base and logistics know-how + infrastructure.
How is losing money a positive? Amazon should have been able to lose even more given more of an investment? Amazon realized its bound to be a big loser and left it.
Even the most conservative investors will look at a loss as a percentage of revenue and not in isolation. Decades of business experience have shown that a low loss ratio in a fast growing business is a good investment opportunity.
I don't see how Amazon's logistics and infrastructure translate to restaurant delivery. They can't stock orders in their warehouses.
Amazon has built a delivery network that is almost on par with DHL and others. I would say that's not only a pretty good starting point to get involved in restaurant delivery, but would also increase the utilization of the delivery vehicles (think Uber Eats).
This type of statements and the type of people behind them are the only reason why startups are successful. On paper, two people in a garage have no chance against a multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Except that in many of those companies, there's a dude walking around and sharing those wonderfully brutal views.
Let's get very specific - why didn't Amazon launch food delivery? Clearly, they are keeping an eye on the space and are trying to make Instacart's life as difficult as possible. There's a very good chance that there's someone at Amazon who at some point said a bunch of rubbish about this idea and slowed down their expansion into this space, which is now going to be extremely expensive. But it will certainly come, and that dude will have cost his employer billions of dollars.
The same way that we drag people over the coals when their startups fail and burn millions of dollars, I think we should do the same with the people who cost their employers the same amount of money.