Speaking of turnarounds, Amazon is doing it. A year ago the company's stock was in a freefall, but today brings the news that Amazon more than doubled its net income while increasing sales by 32%. The W$J headline reminded me of the days when Jeff Bezos was an internet rock star. He was Time's Person of the Year in 1999, but nowadays I hardly ever see him. Relieved of the burden of explaining e-commerce ad nauseum, he now fills part of his newfound free time investing his fortune through Bezos Expeditions, his private equity fund. In the meantime, one thing hasn't changed: Bezos still has commentators guessing about what is really going on at Amazon.

UPDATE: Groceries? I had no idea that Amazon was selling groceries. When I look at the list of Amazon's product categories, I am reminded of Bezos' expansive vision for Amazon and marveling at the fact that it seems to be coming true.

UPDATE2: Here is an excerpt from that Time Person of the Year article linked above. Transport yourself back to 1999:

And he is still losing his pants. That's maybe the one thing people still really don't understand about the e-commerce revolution. If these are such hot businesses, then why are they hemorrhaging cash? Amazon--the company everyone wants to be like--could lose nearly $350 million this year. O.K., the Net is different, but don't profits and losses matter anymore? They do. Bezos insists Amazon's oldest businesses--books, music and video--will be profitable by the end of 2000.

But Amazon's losses are also a sign of the New Economics of Internet commerce. These new rules spring from the idea that in the new global marketplace whoever has the most information wins. While it used to be sellers who had all the information, buyers are getting smarter and smarter. At sites like mysimon.com it's possible to go shopping and search not only Amazon but also the collections of two dozen other booksellers to find the best deal. And in coming years--heck, at Net speed, in coming months--it will be possible to find the cheapest price on just about anything: wines, CDs, perhaps even body parts.

...

There is, in all this, a kind of humanness that is exactly the opposite of what online shopping was supposed to be like. Amazon is not a depopulated, Logan's Run kind of store. The site allows readers to post their opinions about books, to rate products, to swap anecdotes. As you sit there reading, say, a literate and charming book review from Bangladesh, the real power of the Amazon brand comes home. It is a site that is alive with uncounted species of insight, innovation and intellect. No one predicted that electronic shopping could possibly feel this alive. If it is a sign of an e-world yet to come, a place in which technology allows all of us to shop, communicate and live closer together, then Jeff Bezos has done more than construct an online mall. He's helped build the foundation of our future.

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