Based on a 5 year extrapolation of the past into the future. Nope.
A recent “study” has been cited by a gaggle of digital media outlets. Featuring headlines such as “Jeff Bezos Could Be the World’s First Trillionaire, and the Overwhelming Response Is ‘Thanks I Hate It’ (Vice.com) and“Jeff Bezos could become world’s first trillionaire, and many people aren’t happy about it” (USA Today) and trending on twitter via the hashtag #bezostrillionaire and #RIPCapitalism.
The source of this nonsense projection appears to be a web site called “comparisun”, who are likely getting a lot of traffic from this, so congratulations.
Naturally, $150 billion of basically ill-gotten gains (more on that below) is enough to engender plenty of outrage, as it well should. The joke in this case is that this man’s net worth is almost as likely to be near zero in 5 years as to be a trillion dollars.
Why’s that you ask? The answers are endless and all true, but here are a random few. Jeff Bezos wealth is mainly based on Amazon’s share price. That is likely to continue to be the case. That price is currently at all time highs due to many factors but one factor that will not likely continue is the buying that “investors” are engaging in based on the idea the our future economy will consist of Amazon, Netflix and some medical companies that will profit off the coronavirus pandemic.
Hmmm. How’s that likely to work out? Netflix has around 6,700 employees and are unlikely to hire the 20 million that just lost their jobs. Amazon has nearly a million workers but the vast majority are in terrible low paid jobs without bathroom breaks (allegedly).
Does that sound like an economy where stocks, even Amazon’s are likely to rise in price for 5 years straight? Nope. No jobs, no income, no prime .
The reality of the inner workings of his empire will one day be known. Midas touch terminated.
Digging deeper into the business model of the predatory monster from Seattle, there are also some difficult issues that will have to be faced. For example, it is a little known fact that nearly 60% of the income generated by the eCommerce site is based on fees charged to “marketplace sellers”. These sellers are so efficiently exploited that they are known to “source” new products from dumpsters in order to earn enough (after fees) to eat. To supplement what they eat out of those dumpsters, apparently. Don’t just read our article on this, try the Wall Street Journal article titled: “You Might Be Buying Trash on Amazon—Literally”.
And after the pleasure of that kind of “partnership” they are rewarded with zero job security and will be blamed for any and every problem, regardless if it is a small issue with a customer (all refunds and return postage are charged directly to the seller and is triggered at will by the host) or a P.R. problem (marketplace sellers are perfect scapegoats and weeding out the “bad apples” is the perfect cover, driving scrutiny away from the real issues).
The hatred for this system and the virtual impossibility to prosper has been growing steadily for years (ask Nike, Birkenstock or thousands of small companies driven out of business on a whim or tiny infraction by the behemoth) and will only grow. And then there’s the Gov. Both democrats and republicans have major issues with Bezos and his one man circus. Antitrust investigations are ongoing and not only in the US.
There are so many land mines waiting in the road ahead that that stock price has virtually no chance of rising, regardless of how many more competitors of the “grim reaper” are six feet under. Ironically, it is the lack of real competition, online or at the now soon-to-be-extinct shopping mall, that will focus even more of us on why this show needs to end, and soon, not expand at the obscene rate of the previous 5 years.
In a future dreamworld Bezos could have a trillion. In a better world he would be the one unemployed.