Amazon Almost Went Bankrupt | The $1 Trillion Mistake That Became Its Biggest Weapon

May 16, 2026‱Channel
AI Analysis
Data from YouTube Data API v3‱Updated Just now
Think School
Think School

5.7M subscribers

View Channel

Video Overview

Video Details

Published1 month ago
Duration23:08
Video IDeypest93zoA
Languageen-IN
CategoryEducation
PrivacyPublic
Made for KidsNo
Video TypeRegular Video

Performance Metrics

Views66.3K
Likes3.3K
Comments108
Engagement Rate5.11%
Likes per 100 views4.95
Comments per 1K views1.63

Description

👉https://vested.app.link/thinkschool I use Vested to invest in US Stocks. Use my Referral Link and get a $10 bonus on 1st Deposit if you sign up using my link! ⭐ Think School’s flagship Communication course with live doubt sessions : https://thethinkschool.com/sp/communication-masterclass/ VIDEO INTRODUCTION: The year is 2000, and Amazon is on the verge of bankruptcy. By 2001, Amazon had burned nearly $3 billion. Its stock had collapsed 93% from $107 to $7. They had laid off 1,300 people, and Jeff Bezos had become a national punchline. [CLIP] Jay Leno mocking Bezos on The Tonight Show, 1999. Leno: “You lost $12 million last year and you're doing great?” Bezos laughs awkwardly. “It's new math, isn't it?” Now before you judge, please understand, it was the .com bubble where every Tom, Dick, and Harry was raising a million dollars, everyone was selling something online, and in front of all these fragile companies was a legend named Walmart. Around the same time, while Amazon incurred a loss of $1.4 billion, Walmart made $5.38 billion in profits with $168 billion in revenue. But you know what? While journalists were writing Amazon's obituary, while analysts were modeling its bankruptcy, while Walmart was preparing its execution — a small group of engineers inside Amazon were quietly working on something that had nothing to do with books, nothing to do with retail, nothing to do with anything Amazon was supposed to be. It was a side project born out of a random email, and on paper, it made absolutely no sense for a dying bookstore to be working on. But accidentally, this idea is worth $1 trillion, and it makes more money than Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Starbucks combined. And in 2025, while Walmart made $19 billion in profits, this side project of Amazon made $45 billion. This side project is now called Amazon Web Services. The question is: how does a side project at a dying company accidentally become a trillion-dollar idea? What actually happened inside Amazon that led to this discovery? And as a business, what are the lessons that we need to learn about the innovation culture of Amazon? Our Best Indian Business Case Studies: 1. Dhirubhai https://youtu.be/bSx6hDjALkQ?si=wE6PGMgiv7PpHdla 2. Milky mist https://youtu.be/-98fnc4VAo8?si=NtKHTWjvtr_9V8ne 3. Old Monk https://youtu.be/GQPymbqa08A?si=BXhcZhDPXt9wTxO4 4. Waaree https://youtu.be/T1PLEPTbXc4?si=3VbRKyBnd-3Trfqt 5. Blinkit https://youtu.be/OGs2YsqvWDg?si=bZ_AqkdGEsl2X3xW ✅Study Materials: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/amazon-outlives-lehmans-early-obituary/#:~:text=Amazon%20outlives%20Lehman%27s%20early%20obituary https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/aws/the-deceptively-simple-origins-of-aws https://www.scribd.com/document/923419361/AWS-History https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=36511 https://focusonrisksv.substack.com/p/amazon-inc-2001-shareholder-letter#:~:text=Accumulated%20Deficit%20%26%20Indebtedness%3A%20Acknowledged%20a%20substantial%20accumulated%20deficit%20(%242.86%20billion)%20and%20significant%20long%2Dterm%20debt%20(%242.16%20billion)%20as%20of%20December%2031%2C%202001. Think School is a Digital School that we all deserved, but never had â–șâ–șCheck out Think School's Online courses: https://www.thethinkschool.com #thinkschool #businesscasestudy #geopolitics Credits: CNN-News 18, WION, NBC News, Money control pro, Business standard, TV18,Business Today, ABC news, CNBC, ET now ,Bloomberg originals, Financial Times, DW documentary, AL Jazeera English, BBC news, Firstpost.

Related Videos

More videos from Think School