Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who just finalized his divorce from MacKenzie in one of the most expensive settlements in history, shocked investors recently when he said that his company likely will go bankrupt in the future.
According to USA Today, Bezos is dumping roughly $1 billion of Amazon stock (AMZN) every year and has also been reinvesting his money in a small tech company that he believes has potential.
Bezos dropped the bombshell at a recent all-hands meeting in Seattle when an employee asked about the Amazon's future.
"Amazon is not too big to fail,” Bezos said, in a recording of the meeting obtained by CNBC. "In fact, I predict one day Amazon will fail. Amazon will go bankrupt. If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years."
Bezos' comments come amid news that at least 11 major retailers have filed for bankruptcy this year alone. Hundreds of stores are poised to shutter in the coming weeks, leaving thousands without jobs.
Amazon has been at the helm of the world’s retail trade landscape since 1994 but what prompted Bezos' doom-and-gloom predictions remains unclear. Last year the company lost $250 billion in market value over the course of eight weeks.
Boss Hunting noted that Bezos has made similar remarks in the past.
"Companies have short lifespans… and Amazon will be disrupted one day. I don’t worry about it because I know it’s inevitable. Companies come and go, and the companies that are the shiniest and most important of any era – you wait a few decades and they’re gone," he said in 2013 on "60 Minutes."
Bezos’ latest comments come at a time when Amazon is seeing unprecedented success. Over the last decade its stock price has more than quadrupled and its workforce has increased to over 600,000 employees, CNBC noted. However, Bezos remained steadfast in his belief that all good things will eventually come to an end.
He did offer his employees advice on how Amazon could delay its eventual demise — by choosing to "obsess over customers" first and foremost.
"If we start to focus on ourselves, instead of focusing on our customers, that will be the beginning of the end," he said, according to CNBC. "We have to try and delay that day for as long as possible."
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