[thelist] One blowhard, hundreds of cubic feet of hot air

MRC webmaster at equilon-mrc.com
Tue Jan 22 15:50:14 CST 2002


Brian,

> In response to some of Martin Burns submissions to the list recently in
> regards to why web companies succeed or fail.  I obviously feel that Mr.
> Burns doesn't have a clue as to what he is talking about and wish to
> predicate my remarks based on that observation.  I find it very
distasteful
> when someone spouts off about things they don't understand and vehemently
> try to make their case with information that simply isn't true.

    Since you provided no snippets of or links to the post(s) to which you
are referring, I did a bit of research and think I pulled what seems to be
the relevant post from the archives, under the subject "bigger hosting - a
trend?". The relevant quote from Martin appears to be within this paragraph:

"If Amazon (who are profitable on books btw in most of their markets)
have an unrealistic view of the number of customers they can attract,
that's a bad business model. And far too many VCs and dot-coms
bought the Amazon business model of "Get big very fast", which means
you *have* to spend large amounts on your infrastructure. And it doesn't
work very often, so it's an unreliable business model for most companies."
[1]

    To which you responded, in part, "We all know that Amazon has yet to
turn a profit." [2]
    In the post I cited above, Martin did not claim that Amazon as a
complete entity was yet profitable, but only that they are "on books ... in
most of their markets". Isn't that true -- that some of Amazon's "stores"
have been profitable, while others have not been?
    I am not Martin's apologist, and I don't think he needs my defense.
Rather, I am trying to understand what motivated you -- apparently two weeks
after the conclusion of this thread -- to make such an agitated post.
Frankly, if these posts represent the entirety of the discussion -- or at
least of its basic essence -- I haven't a clue.

James Aylard

1. http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20020107/020794.html
2. http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20020107/020792.html
3. http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20020121/022042.html






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