Amazon’s $13.4 billion bet to take on the $800 billion grocery business in the United
States by acquiring Whole Foods fits perfectly into the retailer’s business model.
Unlike almost any other chief executive, Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has built his company by embracing risk, ignoring obvious moves
and imagining what customers want next — even before they know it.
“If you’re going to take bold bets, they’re going to be experiments,” Mr. Bezos explained.
“I’ve made billions of dollars of failures,” Mr. Bezos said at a 2014 conference, adding
that it would be like “a root canal with no anesthesia” if he listed them.
The company’s $13.4 billion deal for Whole Foods is the latest signal of Amazon’s ambitions to have a hold on nearly
every facet our lives — like the computer servers that power our favorite websites and the food we eat.
“When you have such a long-term perspective that you think in decades instead of quarters, it allows you to do things and take risks
that other companies believe would not be in their best interests,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with the investment firm Robert W. Baird & Company.
Some Amazon critics would like the Whole Foods deal to be the trigger for reining in the company.
Mr. Bezos redoubled his focus on customers, largely closed the company off to the media and got to work doing some serious experiments.
“Jeff Bezos is making shopping great,” said Chris Kubica, an e-book consultant and software developer who watches Amazon closely.