Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has outlined his vision for the company in a new shareholder letter, with a pledge to continue expanding into healthcare, satellites, and groceries, among other areas.
Jassy compares this period to that of the financial crisis (which Amazon breezed through), recalling how they doubled down investment on the then-nascent cloud computing sector.
“We had a head start on potential competitors; and if anything, we wanted to accelerate our pace of innovation,” Jassy writes
“We made the long-term decision to continue investing in AWS. Fifteen years later, AWS is now an $85B annual revenue run rate business, with strong profitability, that has transformed how customers from start-ups to multinational companies to public sector organizations manage their technology infrastructure. Amazon would be a different company if we’d slowed investment in AWS during that 2008-2009 period.”
Now, he says, the company will likewise in a variety of areas.
“I’m optimistic that we’ll emerge from this challenging macroeconomic time in a stronger position than when we entered it,” Jassy said.
Jassy ran through his plans for numerous areas, including:
Groceries: “We’re working hard to identify and build the right mass grocery format for Amazon scale. Grocery is a big growth opportunity for Amazon.”
Healthcare: “Going forward, we strongly believe that One Medical [a company they acquired last July] and Amazon will continue to innovate together to change what primary care will look like for customers.”
Satellite internet: “Our vision … is to create a low-Earth orbit satellite system to deliver high-quality broadband internet service to places around the world that don’t currently have it.”
Generative AI: “will transform and improve virtually every customer experience.”
Jassy strikes a hopeful note throughout the letter, pointing to a long, prosperous future for the company.
“We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position. The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model. Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.
“Our decisions have consistently reflected this focus.”
