With brief, occasional, italicized and sometimes gratuitous commentary…
• From Bloomberg:
"Amazon.com Inc. is shutting down tests of its home delivery robot, the latest sign that the e-commerce giant is starting to wind down experimental projects amid slowing sales growth.
"Work on Scout, an autonomous machine launched about three years ago, has already been halted, according to a person familiar with the situation. Amazon spokesperson Alisa Carroll said the Scout team was being disbanded and would be offered new jobs in the organization. About 400 people were working on the project globally, according to the person, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter. A skeleton crew will continue to consider the idea of an autonomous robot, but the current iteration isn’t working."
Lessons: Amazon is willing to take big swings, and willing to admit when it has struck out.
Question: What did Amazon learn from this failure that it will apply to some other project, which likely - is history is any indicator - to be an enormous success?
