📦 Amazon's next era

Alexa, play "In My Life" by The Beatles... Jeff Bezos is feeling post-Prime Day nostalgia. Yesterday, Amazon's founder officially stepped down as CEO after 27 years at the helm. The 'Zon has come a long way since 1995, when Bezos sold the site's first book from his Seattle garage. Bezos had left a cushy hedge fund job to take a risk on his ecomm idea, saying "Even if I fail, I would not have any regrets." Spoiler: he didn't fail.

• Enter Jassy: Andy Jassy = Amazon's new CEO. The Amazon lifer was the CEO of AWS, Amazon's massive cloud computing service ($45B in annual sales).
• Exit Bezos: Kind of. Bezos is now exec chairman, focusing on new Amazon products and special projects.
• Cue investors: Amazon stock barely budged when the transition was announced in February, signaling investors have confidence in the shift.

Special delivery... CEO onboarding packet, coming in bulky. Jassy is inheriting an ecomm and cloud leader with side-hustles in hardware, grocery, advertising, healthcare, streaming, and Hollywood (see: MGM acquisition).

• What’s going well: Money. Amazon's sales surged 44% last quarter, and profit more than tripled as the ecommerce boom keeps booming. The 'Zon is expected to rake in 40%+ of US ecomm sales by the end of the year.
• Not going well: Regulatory scrutiny. The FTC's new leader Lina Khan is a Big Tech critic who wrote a major paper on Amazon's dominance while at Yale Law. Last week, Amazon made moves to stop her from participating in 'Zon-related antitrust investigations. Oh, and a House committee just advanced major legislation to curb Big Tech's dominance.

Space Battle of the Billionaires... Most people do summer vacays in Florida or Yosemite — billionaires go to space. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson plans to board a test spaceflight on Sunday. Awkward, since that's nine days before Jeff Bezos is scheduled to embark on his Blue Origin space trip (announced before Branson's). Aside from fueling billionaires' egos, these trips are billboards for NASA-sponsored space tourism. The fact that CEOs are getting aboard helps build confidence in the emerging industry.

Marvel returns... with a vengeance. Marvel is releasing Black Widow in theaters and Disney+ on Friday, after delaying it for more than a year. It’s the first Marvel flick to debut in theaters since the pandemic began. Now: 80% of movie theaters are open, and Covid restrictions have relaxed. The US box office is seeing a strong recovery, but hasn't caught up to its pre-Covid success yet. Black Widow's ticket sales could give us a glimpse into summer demand.

Labor shortage update... Still short. US employers added an expectation-beating 850K jobs in June, the biggest gain in 10 months. Unemployment ticked up to 5.9%, in part because more Americans started job-searching. As the US economy roars back to life, demand for workers is revving up, too. Wages jumped last month as employers from restaurants to gig apps tried to attract workers. Case in point: Uber and Lyft are spending millions on driver incentives, and you've probably seen ads recruiting food delivery drivers.

Heat waves in the middle of June... A record-breaking heat wave has been plaguing the Pacific Northwest. The temp in Portland soared to 116 degrees last week, hotter than Miami, Dallas, and LA have ever been. All that sweat means more $$$ for A/C companies like Carrier, Lennox, and Trane, whose stocks are near record highs. But for the agriculture industry, the too-hot-handle temps could mean smaller crops and fewer workers. For consumers, it could mean even pricier food.

• Dismissal: The FTC was disappointed when a judge failed to Like its antitrust complaint against Facebook.
• Tok: TikTok is rolling out longer videos, but the real story is its Chinese sister Douyin.
• Spaghetti: Bumble is opening its first restaurant to facilitate IRL connections. But it's not about dating — it's about relevance.

• Drive: 23 of the most scenic road trips in America, because life is a highway.
• Watch: Four emerging trends in the film and TV industry.
• Read: The Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
• Travel: Seven rules for a happy vacation (including: don't post it).

• Tuesday: Earnings expected from SemiLEDs Corp
• Wednesday: Earnings expected from WD-40
• Thursday: Weekly jobless claims. Earnings expected from Levi Strauss and PriceSmart
• Friday: Marvel's "Black Widow" comes out in theaters. Earnings expected from Greenbrier Companies

Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Amazon

ID: 1709868