But isn't it the case that the cash cow for Amazon is actually AWS? That is, without AWS would we consider Amazon to be the success we see it as today?

Yes we would.

Keep in mind that while the store brings in a majority of revenue, it provides less than 20% of operating income. A majority of operating income comes from AWS (which provides less than 20% of revenue).

https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/01/10/amazon-e-commerce-...

Forget about AWS and simply compare Amazon with other offline/online/mixed stores.

"In 2023, Amazon accounted for 37.6% of all e-commerce sales in America, which was light-years ahead of second-place Walmart at 6.3%."

Amazon is highly successful even without AWS.

I see your overall point, i think it is the wrong comp. It compare more to SAP or Atlassian.

I'm curious how you put OpenAI, SAP & Atlassian all in the same category. Do you mind explaining your thinking?

It's a comparison, not a same category.

Leaders in their market, at first because of a small moat and large advance, then the advance shrink but the brand will stay first for at least a decade due to brand recognition.

The Amazon comp works less, unless openAI start to suddenly build the sell their own chips.

Amazon weren't making money because they were expanding rapidly and had a lot of capex.

OpenAI don't make money because they're losing money on inference. If you remove their capex - training costs, which you can't because they have to remain competitive, they'd still be losing money.