01
The founder
Jeff Bezos
02
The bet
Reinvest every dollar of margin into lower prices and selection instead of profit.
03
The inflection point
The 2001 decision to cut prices and open the platform to third-party sellers turned a bookstore into an operating system for commerce.
04
The lesson
A flywheel compounds when you feed it: lower prices → more customers → more sellers → lower costs → lower prices.