It seems preposterous now, but Amazon began as a bookstore.

Everything seems set up for success in digital journalism - money, eyeballs, software, brands.

To many book professionals, Amazon is a ruthless predator. The company claims to want a more literate world - and it came along when the book world was in distress, offering a vital new source of sales.

Today, we have our own concentrations of economic power. Instead of Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, the Union Pacific Railroad, and J. P. Morgan and Company, we have Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft.

I don't think it's inappropriate for Amazon or eBay to have higher valuations than other retailers, but it seems like [those companies'] valuations are a little stretched right now.

In 1972, Texaco Oil Company, in partnership with PetroEcuador, the state-run oil company of Ecuador, began to drill for oil in the jungles of the Ecuadorian Amazon.