In October 2014, a few weeks after Jeff Bezos returned from his first trip to India, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appeared on the talk show Charlie Rose and threw serious shade at his company’s crosstown rival. “I don’t know what to say about Amazon. I like Amazon. Nice company. [But] they make no money, Charlie! In my world, you’re not a real business until you make some money.” Amazon’s performance at the time seemed to merit Ballmer’s assessment. The company had lost $241 million that year, and over the holiday season it logged its slowest growth in sales since the disastrous days of
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