What Is Amazon Trying to Be?
After the company's big Hollywood purchase this week came reports that it's planning to open pharmacies next. Because that makes sense.
Across Amazon’s divergent interests there seems to be a unifying mission: making it easier for consumers to get things.
Photographer: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images
Jeff Bezos might as well join the crowd and call it Amazon+. No other company’s calculus is more deserving.
From Hollywood to health care, Amazon.com Inc. seems to be growing tentacles at an accelerating rate. The online retailer has snapped up MGM, a storied remnant of the golden age of film, for $8.45 billion, its second-largest takeover after Whole Foods Market. Most companies in the midst of such an important strategic expansion would stop it there, but not Amazon. It’s said to be crafting its next plan to open brick-and-mortar pharmacies in the U.S. to move deeper into drug distribution. That’s only this week’s headlines — the reaches of the $1.6 trillion conglomerate stretch far further. And now, as Amazon’s founder prepares to step back, it’s this multifaceted, if chaotic, culture that’s leaving investors to wonder what becomes of the technology giant as that label becomes more of a stretch.