Bezos Inventory

Jeff Bezos built Amazon on a single insight. Negative cash conversion cycle. Normal retailers buy inventory, hold it, sell it, eventually receive payment. Amazon inverted it, customers paid instantly. Amazon took 30 to 60 days to pay suppliers. During that period, Amazon held customer cash and used it to buy more inventory. Suppliers financed the operation. At small scale, it worked. At large scale, it became a money machine. By 2000, Amazon collected billions from customers before paying suppliers. That float funded growth without external capital. Bezos bought servers, expanded warehouses, hired engineers. Most retailers would have declared profits. Bezos reinvested everything. Every float dollar went back. He announced plans to build distribution centers everywhere.