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In an unexpected move, MultiChoice announced a partnership deal with Netflix and Amazon, in June. Aiming to be a one-stop shop, MultiChoice plans to offer the streaming services of its competitors through its new decoder. Some have expressed concern about the pay-TV group warding off competition. Duncan McLeod, Founder &#038; Editor of TechCentral joins CNBC Africa for more.

Here’s what to expect from MultiChoice’s partnership with Netflix & Amazon

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The big four tech giants, worth nearly $5 trillion reported earnings last week defying the worst economic downturns on record. Joining CNBC Africa for more on the numbers is Henry Biddlecombe, Analyst at Anchor Capital.

Tech giants report strong earnings

By Peter Armitage, Anchor Capital CEO/Liam Hechter, Anchor Fund Management



Recent weeks have been dominated by investors asking us where the best investment opportunities are in the aftermath of the global market collapse. Below, we review the asset classes across major geographies, with a focus on equities.



Introduction



There are a few principles which we apply and assumptions that we make in our assessment of global and local assets. First, we assume that the world will revert to normality, although we have no idea when this will happen. At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual general meeting on Saturday (2 May), billionaire investor and Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett referred to the current period of volatility as “an interruption of growth”. The world will revert to growth. However, we are actively avoiding those assets where a longer-than-expected reversion to normality can materially and permanently damage the business. We are also avoiding areas of high risk – there is no need to assume a big risk when investment opportunities abound. There is also great merit in being patient – if you have money to invest you have time on your hands. We are not getting overly anxious when markets decline – this presents opportunities but be prepared to act. We are not getting FOMO when markets rise, and we are not fully invested – volatility will prevail for some time to come. So, also be prepared to sit on your hands, when necessary.



From a global perspective, first we highlight that low-risk assets generate no, or even a negative, return. Global developed market (DM) bond rates are basically at zero to negative and cash in the bank erodes in nominal terms. If you do not allocate some cash to riskier assets (such as property and equities), your wealth will erode in real terms. This scenario will prevail for a long time to come and interest rates simply cannot rise.



So, when and how do you invest in equities and property globally?



The first point to make is that the change in environment has impacted sectors and companies very differently – this is not a time for index investment. Oil, cars, pigs and sugar (for example) are in a big surplus so, while some companies have seen their turnover head to zero, the environment has been very positive for others. Amazon’s 1Q20 revenue, for example, was up a remarkable 26% YoY.



Nevertheless, some caution is warranted in global equity investment. There will be a lot of money to be made in these conditions, but timing is important. March 2020 was one of the worst months ever on global markets, but April saw a big bounce back – the best in the past 33 years. The bottom line is that, YTD, the MSCI World Index is down by 12% up to the end of April (with the S&amp;P 500 index down only 9% YTD), which many would consider a far better-than-expected outcome, after the height of the novel coronavirus (CV-19) fears a month or two ago. We believe global equity markets started the year in fully valued territory and, at an index level, with prospects now far worse, markets as a whole are certainly not in value territory. Earnings in 2020 will be under immense pressure and 2021 looks uncertain. Great businesses will rebound to normality in 2021, but some of this is already factored into share prices.



Everyone we speak to both in South Africa (SA) and in the UK have been caught off guard, with the overwhelming majority of those people expecting equities to go lower from here. We note the following:



<ul><li>“no one” is buying the bear market rally.</li><li>US Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell is pouring cold water on the hopes of a V-shaped recovery by stating that there is “… considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term.”</li><li>30mn people in the US are now “unemployed”.</li></ul>



So, how do we play global equity markets?



<ul><li>Do not sell your long-term growth companies.</li><li>In our funds we remain focussed on buying great companies at good prices and these opportunities are presenting themselves. We are excited by these opportunities and we await further pullbacks to increase our exposure.</li><li>Certain sectors of the market will benefit from the events of the past two months and their long-term drivers and trends will be strengthened.</li><li>Among our top holdings are: The Walt Disney Company, Yum! Brands, Nike, Prudential, Unilever, Admiral Group, ICICI Bank, GlaxoSmithKline, Amazon, Ping An Insurance, Johnson &amp; Johnson, PayPal, Royal Dutch Shell and Alphabet.</li></ul>



A recovery portfolio



There are numerous share-specific opportunities which present themselves with the prospects of their share prices rising by 25%-50% in the next 12-18 months. Anchor has been running a “Recovery Portfolio”, which adds to, instead of replacing, a core long-term growth portfolio. The recovery portfolio is dominated by high-quality companies with great track records whose share prices have been hammered. Among these are: JP Morgan, Hasbro, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Paychex, Stryker, Sysco, Leggett &amp; Platt and Ulta Beauty.



So, in global equity markets, there are some great individual opportunities, but our base-case view is that better opportunities might still present themselves and we want to make sure we have cash available to take advantage of these.



Property



Global property is an interesting equation. Many tenants are not paying rent (especially in retail) and people are questioning whether the same amount of office space will be required after the lockdown experience. Global listed property shares have acted similarly to global equities and are down around 20%. The issue with property companies is that, generally, high levels of gearing mean that prolonged periods of reduced turnover can have a significant negative impact on net asset value (NAV) per share. Diversified listed property companies might well be a good way to play a recovery, but it should be restricted to quality plays.



Anchor has significant intellectual capital in the property space, and we are very excited about property over the next few years, especially given what is happening to capital prices. In the physical property space, there is blood on the streets, and it will get worse. Yet property has a powerful role to play in a diversified portfolio – strong, predictable, compounding and growing cash flows are available with the right tenant and leases. While listed shares might be a good way to play the recovery, we believe the direct market will be particularly attractive. The Anchor Tenant team is identifying such opportunities and will present global and local opportunities to investors over the coming months.



Moving to the local market …



SA is in a very different space to developed markets (DMs) where investors can earn a very attractive real return by investing in income and bond products. This means one can be even more patient with equity investment.



The SA market, as measured by the Capped Swix Index, bounced back by 14% in April and for the year to end April the index is down 16%. The direction in SA markets is likely to follow global markets and the rand is expected to weaken if global markets weaken and vice versa. When the world is more comfortable that normality will return in a reasonable timeframe, emerging markets (EMs) are likely to outperform DMs and the rand has the potential to recover materially. It is important to look below the index level and understand the non-SA Inc. shares that have recovered, as opposed to the SA shares. This is not surprising, as the price of many of these shares is set internationally and they have been dragged higher by their international strings.



The SA economy is only one part of the equation



It is vital to remember that, when we talk about the SA market, there is a portion that is sensitive to SA economics and a portion that is not impacted (consider Naspers, British American Tobacco [BTI], Richemont, BHP Billiton, Quilter etc.). In our equity fund, only 26% of our holdings are sensitive to the SA recovery and, despite SA’s poor short-term outlook, we have retained these because they are trading at once-in-a-decade valuations. SA banks and insurance companies are strong, and it appears that more than the worst case is already factored into many of these companies’ share prices.



MTN is an example of a share which we believe has more than 50% upside potential. Mobile telecommunications has been strong sector internationally this year and Vodacom is up for the year. MTN has fallen sharply, largely because of its Nigerian exposure (27% of profits). This contribution will fall, but we still expect it to be positive, and Nigeria is now being valued at zero in the MTN share price



April’s winners



The past month on the JSE was characterised by extreme volatility in those sectors with the highest degrees of operational risk brought on by CV-19 (read SA cyclicals), which, through their volatility continued to disappoint. The winners were more of the same from those sectors that have provided much of the performance contribution of the index over the past 18 months:



<ul><li>Naspers/Prosus (a 2% contribution to the index);</li><li>PGM (2.2%);</li><li>Gold (2%); and</li><li>British American Tobacco (1%).</li></ul>



While we focus on long-term investment in our philosophy, the current volatility and pricing of shares is presenting us with shorter-term opportunities.



In SA equity, our actions have been to increase the defensiveness of the portfolio. This is done by reducing our exposure to those companies with weak balance sheets, which are not yet fully reflected in the share price, and those businesses which face immediate threats to their existence and, where we can, by increasing our exposure to those leading franchises that should emerge from this crisis in a better shape – or at least where we are confident that they will emerge. An interesting observation globally in the March sell-off and the subsequent April rebound was that value tended to underperform growth. As part of our strategy, we think this multi-year growth trend of outperforming value is likely to persist, although we do not manage factors that simplistically at a portfolio level. In the last few sessions in April, we started to see some buying coming in for those names that had been severely sold off over the past six weeks, the more cyclical sectors, with growth underperforming.



Anchor’s buys and sells in April



In the Anchor BCI Equity Fund we were net sellers of The Foschini Group, Nedbank, Bidvest, Home Depot and Discovery. We were net buyers of Growthpoint, FirstRand, Old Mutual, Quilter Plc and Sibanye Stillwater.



The underperformance of the SA economy has resulted in a continued narrowing of the local investible universe, with the index becoming increasingly concentrated to a small number of large caps, mostly exporter/rand-hedge type stocks. In the short term, it is unlikely that this trend will break. However, it is likely that, over the medium term, the underperformance of domestic companies will reach an inflection point and they will return to growth once more – its human nature to extrapolate a negative trend into perpetuity, but it seldom works out that way.



Other EMs



As we look across global markets it is interesting to consider some EMs:



<ul><li>SA (like India), could probably loosen the grip on its lockdown measures in order to save a vulnerable economy. The second-order impacts of the continued lockdown will likely be far worse than the damage caused by the virus itself. We expect positive surprises on this front, with the lockdown likely being softened to allow more businesses to open.</li><li>China: We expect China to keep chugging along, despite the structure of its economy being very different to 2008/2009, so we anticipate the policy response needed to reflect that. Looser monetary conditions should be front and centre. However, the relationship with its biggest trading partner (the US) is rapidly deteriorating and this trend is unlikely to stop anytime soon.</li><li>Brazil: As a country this is not in a great place. Going into the pandemic, Brazil was the big reform story of 2020. However, that has unravelled in dramatic fashion, with political and social unrest due to the country’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the crisis. The oil price crashing is also not helping Brazil’s fiscal situation</li><li>Russia will be ok. Going into the oil market collapse the country had been building reserves for all of 5 years. Russia also has no external debt and is running twin surpluses. It is difficult to find a stronger balance sheet from a major economy. The oil price collapse is not good for the country as its biggest export commodity, so Russia will go into a recession but we note that the government has more than enough money at its disposal to stimulate fiscally ($500bn in excess reserves for a start). And, we believe that the oil market will eventually rebalance and find a level higher than where it is now.</li><li>India also has significant social unrest due to the government’s handling of the virus. Like SA, the criticism has been directed at the economic sacrifice brought about by government’s lockdown measures. In our view, it will suffer a recession this year, but India’s banks are in far better shape than a few years ago.</li></ul>



Above all else we need to remember that the world will reopen, life will get back to some form of normality, Super Rugby will return, everything will be OK – the world is just going to have to figure out how to cope with all the extra debt.

Op-Ed: Supporting the ICT sector in Africa as a cure for the economic crisis

Op-Ed: Anchor Capital on how to make money out of equities in the aftermath of the global market collapse

By Chris Bishop



Amazon has been voted top dog in the competitive world of brands in the Brand Finance Retail 50 survey &#8211;&nbsp; told you so, says the company’s representative in Africa.



The online shopping giant has been cashing in on the COVID-19 lockdown thanks to people’s inability to leave their home and has increased its brand share by 17.5 per cent to be worth $220,791,000. In second place is the US store chain Walmart, up 14.2 per cent with a brand worth $77,520. Industry experts say Walmart was a bit slow off the mark with online sales, but made up for it over the last year.



“Speaking at a conference in South Africa over a decade ago, &nbsp;I said I thought Amazon would become the biggest retail brand&nbsp; in the world. I was then told from the floor that I was wrong, Amazon was not a retail brand. It reminds me that many years ago I was told gently by a top CEO that I couldn’t be right all the time. Very good advice, but there is no harm in trying! Larry Page, a founder of Google, once said that the main reason brands failed is that they were unable to see the future,” says Jeremy Sampson, the CEO of Brand Finance Africa.



“You will see from the annual ranking of Top Retail Brands released by Brand Finance in London this week that Amazon is in a league of its own. Yet some of the traditional retailers, if that is the right term, have remained strong and are adapting. In South Africa, as in most countries there is a long list of retailers who are no longer. The last few weeks has accelerated the use of technology and we will see further shrinking of a bricks and mortar presence. We have a Minister who seems to think technology gives some an unfair advantage. He needs to get real as this is an undeniable fact of life. But we do need to harness technology for the benefit of all.” What the experts can’t work out is why Jack Ma’s baby the online shopping conglomerate Alibaba. The China-based company is hanging on to number 10 on the Brand Finance top 10 brands. Its brand, according to research &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Screenshot 2020-05-04 at 11.08.53

I told you so! The $220 million name that means  Amazon is top dog among world brands

Coronavirus updates: China reports 8 new cases, wife of Canadian PM tests positive

By David S. Levin, writer from New York  



All of these new, high-tech gadgets out there are making me a little uneasy lately. People walk around forever plugged into their iPhones looking like vacant cyborgs from one of those futuristic science fiction movies. Sometimes, I think we’re actually starting to merge with them into some kind of a highly evolved, all-knowing cyber life form.



Apparently,
I haven’t been spared from this destiny either. It occurred to me recently that
the human me is slowly being subsumed by the digital one. My iPhone has essentially
become my proxy. My alter-ego. My very own super-charged, high-tech magic wand
with a 1.4 gigahertz quad-core processor. The truth is, without it, I really can’t
do much of anything anymore. I’ll bet you can’t either.



I
know the argument though. Technology means progress. New advances and
efficiencies. Cheaper, better, faster. Yada, yada, yada&#8230; 



I get
it. But honestly, I don’t want it anymore. 



Because
I’ve decided that I’m done with my iPhone. Finito. I’m shutting it off for good.
That’s right, hasta-la-vista baby. I will be a cyborg no more!



OK,
obviously, I’m the outlier here. The rebel. A dissenter. I mean, who actually chooses
to go off the grid these days? Because, smartphones are no longer a
nice-to-have. They’re mission critical. They’re like having a Formula 1
cyber-Ferrari right in the palm of your hand. And in today’s hyper-wired world,
they’re nearly impossible to live without.



But
I’m going to try. Because I want my damn life back. The old one. The original
me. You know, pre-iPhone. I want to be inefficient again. Imprecise. Out of the
loop and disconnected. Tardy. Off-schedule. Slow to respond and out of touch.



And
enough with the never-ending connectivity too. Sorry, but I’m not open 24/7. I don’t
want to hear all the beeping and dinging anymore. Or the buzzing and vibrating.
It’s maddening. And the never-ending flood of text messages and weather updates.
Those infuriating ringtones. The endless pop-up advertisements. The real news
alerts. The fake news alerts. And those galling friend requests from people
who know someone who knows someone else who I worked with twenty years go. Stop
it already!!! I don’t want any more faux friends on Facebook and LinkedIn. I
already have 1,627 of them, most of whom I don’t even know. &nbsp;



So,
I finally did it. I’m done. I’m iPhone free. That’s right, out to pasture. Down
the drain. Out the window. I’ve disconnected from the broader digital
collective. And I’m ditching the rest of my technology too. Like the two Smartwatches,
and three iPads I couldn’t live without. My Surface Pro 7. The Amazon Echo and
Facebook Portal in my living room. My Fitbit and Air Pods. All of it. A full
digital detox. So, go ahead, look down on me. Call me a pariah. You wouldn’t be
wrong.&nbsp; 



Of
course, I’ll miss all the cool things I can do with it. Like being able to shop
for a new 55-inch smart television on my Amazon app while I’m in-between sets
at the gym. Or how I can reminisce and flip through any of my 3247 photos as I
take the subway downtown to work. And how I can do all my banking without ever
setting foot into even one of their branches. 



What
finally sent me over the edge though was that my reliance on my phone had far
surpassed any level of normalcy. My behaviour started to change, and it became impossible
for me to put it down for even a few minutes. My iPhone had basically become
“mini-me.” 



Obviously,
something had to give. So now, after more than ten uber-efficient years with my
iPhone faithfully toiling by my side, I’ve gone back to my roots. I’ve broken free.




I’m
analog again. 



Now,
it’s buried deep in my sock drawer under 15 pairs of multi-colored argyle socks,
some old business files, and a few worn out wallets that I no longer carry. 



And
at last, I’m me again. The original version. The human me. 



It’s
great to be back.

Op-Ed: Why I dumped my smartphone

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/christopher-dilella/">Christopher DiLella</a> <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/cdilella" target="_blank">@CDILELLA</a> 



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Amazon CEO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jeff-bezos/" class="">Jeff Bezos</a>&nbsp;just bought the makings of an $80 million mega-residence in New York City. But before the richest man in the world purchased the three-level penthouse at 212 Fifth Avenue, plus two additional apartments, CNBC got a tour of the triplex with Sotheby’s International Realty broker&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebyshomes.com/nyc/agents/nikki.field?page=1&amp;amp;tab=sale" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Nikki Field</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105951013-1559760268804buildingext.jpg?v=1559761923&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC EXCLUSIVE JEFF BEZOS PENTHOUSE 3"/></figure>



Exterior of 212 Fifth Avenue: CNBC



The sprawling 10,000-square-foot penthouse has five bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms and a seven-room master suite.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105951012-1559760268804greatroom.jpg?v=1559761933&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC EXCLUSIVE JEFF BEZOS PENTHOUSE 2"/></figure>



Great roomCNBC



″[The master suite] is a dream,” Field told CNBC in October 2018. “There’s a private bedroom, as well as two dressing rooms, two extraordinarily well-outfitted bathrooms, a sitting room, and a home office, numerous closets, magnificent views and privacy from the rest of the home.”



Inside the master bathroom is a breathtaking view of the Empire State Building from the tub.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105951014-1559760268804bathtubviewsofempire.jpg?v=1559762016&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC EXCLUSIVE JEFF BEZOS PENTHOUSE 4"/></figure>



Master bathroom: CNBC



In addition to the master suite, the first level of the main residence also has a great room that connects to the home’s kitchen and formal dining room.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105951016-1559760268804greatroompov2.jpg?v=1559761996&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC EXCLUSIVE JEFF BEZOS PENTHOUSE 6"/></figure>



Great room: CNBC



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105951015-1559760268804diningroom.jpg?v=1559762005&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC EXCLUSIVE JEFF BEZOS PENTHOUSE 5"/></figure>



Dining room: CNBC



The penthouse’s second level has a sun-lit lounge area that opens up to 5,000-square-foot terrace.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105951011-15597602688042levelroom.jpg?v=1559761987&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC EXCLUSIVE JEFF BEZOS PENTHOUSE 1"/></figure>



The sun-lit lounge area on the second floor of the penthouse triplex opens to a 5,000 sq. ft. wraparound terrace. CNBC



Below is a view of Manhattan’s famous Flatiron Building taken from the terrace of the penthouse Bezos has purchased.



<figure><iframe src="https://www.instagram.com/p/BlX4WD_g724/embed/?cr=1&amp;v=12&amp;wp=540&amp;rd=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com&amp;rp=%2F2019%2F06%2F05%2Fphotos-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-new-multimillion-dollar-nyc-penthouse.html#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A13464.91000000242%2C%22ls%22%3A13439.340000000811%2C%22le%22%3A13460.510000000795%7D" allowfullscreen="true" height="879"></iframe></figure>



The triplex’s top floor includes what Field refers to as the “observatory” — a single room surrounded by glass doors that opens to a wraparound terrace with north, east and south views of the Manhattan skyline.



The penthouse was originally listed for $73.8 million in November 2017. Sources tell CNBC’s Robert Frank that Bezos will pay roughly $58 million for the penthouse and get the two additional apartments on the lower floor for about $20 million.



The CEO’s three-unit deal includes four floors totaling more than 17,000 square feet with 12 bedrooms. Not bad for a NYC pied-a-terre.



Christopher DiLella is a segment producer for CNBC’s specials unit, covering luxury lifestyle and real estate.



This article first appeared on CNBC&#8217;s website: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/05/photos-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-new-multimillion-dollar-nyc-penthouse.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/05/photos-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-new-multimillion-dollar-nyc-penthouse.html</a> and is republished with its permission

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Exclusive: Inside Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos’ new $80 million NYC mega-home

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75 per cent of U.S industries have become condensed with a small number of leading firms in each sector such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. These firms dominate their respective industries in terms of sales, profits and equity returns. So why there is a growing concern for investors backing these so called ‘U.S superstar firms’. Joining CNBC Africa for more is Gavin Ralston the Head of Official Institutions and Thought Leadership at global asset manager Schroders.

US superstar companies are slowly losing their lustre

US superstar companies are slowly losing their lustre, here’s why

By Taylor Locke 



Everyone has the same amount of time in a day as people like <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a>, who is CEO of not just Tesla, but also SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink, and <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/jack-dorsey/">Jack Dorsey</a>, who is CEO of both Twitter and Square.



So how do such busy billionaire founders like Musk and Dorsey manage their days? Here are Musk’s, Dorsey’s and other successful business leaders’ tips on maximizing productivity.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Jack Dorsey has meetings from a Google Doc</h2>



Research has shown that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/13/jeff-bezos-mark-cuban-and-elon-musk-all-avoid-meetings.html" class="">most managers believe meetings kill productivity</a>: 65% of senior managers say meetings keep them from completing their own work, according to a survey from&nbsp;<a href="https://hbr.org/2017/07/stop-the-meeting-madness" class="">Harvard Business School and Boston University</a>, and 71% of 182 managers surveyed said they find meetings to be unproductive and inefficient.



When it comes to meetings, Jack Dorsey has a non-traditional approach that he believes speeds up the critical thinking process, as&nbsp;<a href="https://resume.io/productivity-lessons-from-successful-founders" class="">Resume.io points out</a>.



“Most of my meetings are now Google doc-based, starting with 10-minutes of reading and commenting directly in the doc,” Dorsey tweeted in 2018. “This practice makes time for everyone to get on same page, allows us to work from many locations, and gets to truth/critical thinking faster.”



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Most of my meetings are now Google doc-based, starting with 10-minutes of reading and commenting directly in the doc. This practice makes time for everyone to get on same page, allows us to work from many locations, and gets to truth/critical thinking faster. Good thread 👇🏼 <a href="https://t.co/YRsxT3kMAZ">https://t.co/YRsxT3kMAZ</a>&mdash; jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/987163806781472768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>



The social media exec referenced a Twitter thread by Steven Sinofsky, the former Windows Division President at Microsoft, to support his Google Doc method. Sinofsky explained the potential up-side to writing during meetings as opposed to traditional ones.



“Writing is more inclusive,” Sinofsky said. “It is easier to contribute, doesn’t reward bullies and bulls&#8212;ers, and allows for contemplation.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Elon Musk eliminates excessive meetings</h2>



Elon Musk starts his day with his most critical work and schedules the rest of his day based on priority.



“Focus on signal over noise,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Qh-vwpYH8&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=3m30s" class="">Musk said at the University of Southern California Commencement Speech</a>&nbsp;in 2014. “Don’t waste your time on stuff that doesn’t actually make things better.”



One of the ways he does this is by eliminating as many meetings as he can.



“Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/elon-musks-productivity-rules-according-to-tesla-email.html" class="">the CEO shared in a letter to employees</a>&nbsp;regarding productivity in 2018<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/elon-musks-productivity-rules-according-to-tesla-email.html" class="">.</a>&nbsp;“Get rid frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter.”



If you must have a meeting, Musk says “be certain [you are] providing value to the whole audience.” Musk also advises his employees to “walk out or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value.”



It’s not rude to leave meetings that are not providing any value, he says.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Jeff Bezos makes quick decisions</h2>



It’s important to make “high-quality, high-velocity” decisions, according to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. That’s because “speed matters in business,” he said&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/2016-letter-to-shareholders" class="">in his 2016 letter to shareholders</a>.



“Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70 percent of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90 percent, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.”



In fact, whether you make the right decision can actually be less important than making one quickly, according to Bezos.



“Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors— for those, so what if you’re wrong?”



You need to be good at quickly correcting bad decisions, he said, but “if you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure.”



Amazon “is determined to keep our decision-making velocity high” not only because it’s important, said Bezos, but also because a “high-velocity decision making environment is more fun too.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Steve Jobs knew when to say ‘no’</h2>



<a href="https://resume.io/productivity-lessons-from-successful-founders" class="">As Resume.io points out</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/steve-jobs/" class="">Steve Jobs</a>&nbsp;believed a key to productivity is knowing<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/steve-jobs-heres-what-most-people-get-wrong-about-focus.html" class="">&nbsp;when to say “no</a>.”



“Focusing is about saying ‘no,’” the late Apple co-founder said during the company’s 1997 Worldwide Developers Conference.



“Focus means saying ‘no’ to the hundred other good ideas,”so you have decide what it makes sense to spend time and energy on, and what doesn’t, Jobs said.



In fact, billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/3-things-two-men-learned-from-their-650000-lunch-with-warren-buffett.html" class="">Warren Buffett shares Jobs’ mindset</a>, once saying “the difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bill Gates sharpens his focus through meditation</h2>



Many successful people from Dorsey to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/bridgewater-associates-ray-dalio-meditation-is-key-to-my-success.html" class="">hedge fund</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/bridgewater-associates-ray-dalio-meditation-is-key-to-my-success.html" class="">billionaire Ray Dalio</a>&nbsp;make meditation part of their daily routine.



It is also one of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/bill-gates/" class="">Bill Gates</a>’ favorite productivity habits. “It’s a great tool for improving my focus,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Headspace-Guide-to-Meditation-and-Mindfulness?WT.mc_id=12_03_2018_10_EOYBooks2018Headspace_BG-media_&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;WT.tsrc=BGmedia" class="">he said in his Gates Notes blog</a>&nbsp;in 2018.



“Meditation is simply exercise for the mind, similar to the way we exercise our muscles when we play sports,” he said.



The Microsoft co-founder, who meditates “two or three times a week, for about 10 minutes each time,” said that meditation teaches him “how to pay attention to the thoughts in my head, and [gain] a little bit of distance from them,” improving his concentration.



Gates <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/03/bill-gates-names-the-5-best-books-he-read-in-2018.html">suggests the book</a> “The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness” by former Buddhist monk Andy Puddicombe, for anyone who’d like to get started meditating. 



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/11/productivity-tips-from-elon-musk-jeff-bezos-steve-jobs-and-more.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/11/productivity-tips-from-elon-musk-jeff-bezos-steve-jobs-and-more.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Productivity tips from billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and more

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jade-scipioni/">Jade Scipioni</a> 



Jeff Bezos started Amazon as an online bookstore in his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/photos-inside-seattle-house-where-jeff-bezos-started-amazon.html" class="">garage</a>&nbsp;in 1994. Today, Amazon has a more than $900 billion market cap and Bezos is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/jeff-bezos-launches-day-one-fund-charity-how-he-spends-his-billions.html" class="">richest person in the world</a>&nbsp;with a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/jeffrey-p-bezos/" class="">$116 billion fortune</a>.



Along the way, Bezos has learned a thing or two about what it takes to be someone who succeeds in business. Here is some of his top advice.



Be a missionary



While there is a debate among billionaires on whether or not you should follow your passion — “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban says such advice is one of the “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/16/mark-cuban-follow-your-passion-is-bad-advice.html" class="">great lies of life</a>, ” for instance — Bezos believes its vital to being a successful entrepreneur. In fact, it’s the people who care who win, he says.



“You have got to have some passion for the arena that you are going to develop and work in, because otherwise you’ll be competing against those who do have passion for that, and they’re going to build better products and services,” Bezos said at Amazon’s re:Mars conference in Las Vegas on June 6.



He added that it’s essential for an entrepreneur to “be a missionary,” you “can’t be mercenary,” meaning that you have to mission-motivated, not money-motivated.



“Missionaries build better products and services — they always win,” said Bezos. “Mercenaries are just trying to make money, and paradoxically the missionaries always end up making more money.”



 Embrace risk and failure



To be successful in business, you also must be willing to take risks, and therefore to fail.



“If you come up with a business idea and there’s no risk there&#8230;it’s probably already being done&#8230;[and] being done well&#8230;. So you have to have something that might not work and you have to accept that your business in many ways is an experiment and it might fail,” Bezos said. “And that’s ok.”



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/08/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-boldest-business-moves.html" class="">Bezos is known for making bold moves</a>: For example, skeptics doubted customers would pay $79 a year for Amazon Prime when it launched in 2005; as of April 2018 the service had 100 million subscribers worldwide.



He’s also had some fails, like Amazon Restaurants, which will&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/11/grubhub-shares-jump-amazon-shuts-down-its-restaurant-delivery-service.html" class="">shut down</a>June 24, or the recent demise of Amazon’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-is-closing-all-pop-up-stores-2019-3" class="">pop-up kiosks</a>.



And Bezos continues to encourage risk-taking at Amazon. In fact, the size of the risks and the failures need to grow with the company, he said.



“We need big failures if we’re going to move the needle” — “billion-dollar scale failures,” Bezos said at re:Mars. “And if we’re not, we’re not swinging hard enough.”



Change your mind



Bezos has learned from interacting with the world’s most influential minds that the people who usually get things right are those who listen the most and who change their minds often.



“What I have found that people who are right change their mind even without getting new data. They have the same data set that they had at the beginning, but they wake up and they reanalyze things all the time and they come to a new conclusion and then they change their mind.”



In fact, people who win typically have worked hard to recognize what beliefs or biases they hold and “actively try to look for evidence that disconfirms” them, Bezos said.



Billionaire Ray Dalio is an example. He built Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, to function as an “idea meritocracy.”



“The greatest tragedy of mankind — or one of them — is that people needlessly hold wrong opinions in their minds,” <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/ray-dalio-says-greatest-tragedy-of-mankind-is-people-clinging-to-wrong-opinions.html">Dalio has said</a>.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/13/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-on-how-to-succeed-in-business.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/13/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-on-how-to-succeed-in-business.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos: This is who ‘always wins’ in business

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/lucy-handley/">Lucy Handley</a>



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=AMZN" class="">Amazon</a>&nbsp;has overtaken&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=GOOGL" class="">Google</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=AAPL" class="">Apple</a>&nbsp;to become the world’s most valuable brand at $315.5 billion, according to a ranking of global companies, up 52% on last year.



Apple comes second, valued at $309.5 billion, with Google in third place, at $309 billion, according to the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand ranking 2019, compiled by WPP research agency Kantar and released Tuesday.



Google and Apple had spent a combined 12 years at the top of the list, with Google taking the top spot in 2018.



Doreen Wang, Kantar’s global head of BrandZ, said Amazon’s jump was due to it selling a variety of services. “Amazon’s phenomenal brand value growth of almost $108 billion in the last year demonstrates how brands are now less anchored to individual categories and regions. The boundaries are blurring as technology fluency allow brands, such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba, to offer a range of services across multiple consumer touchpoints,” she said in a statement emailed to CNBC.



<a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/amazon-makes-several-start-up-investments-revenue-growth-slows.html">Amazon has been increasing investments in a range of companies</a> as its core business slows, including self-driving car start-up Aurora and electric truck company Rivian, as well as expanding <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/amazon-will-compete-with-fedex-and-ups-to-become-logistics-company.html">Amazon Air</a>, its airplane business. It bought online pharmacy PillPack for $753 million in 2018 and last month led a $575 million funding round into food delivery company Deliveroo.



Four of the BrandZ top ten were made up of more traditional brands including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=V" class="">Visa</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=MCD" class="">McDonald’s</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=T" class="">AT&amp;T</a>. Microsoft comes in at fourth place, as it did in 2018.



Technology companies have always dominated the ranking, with <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=MSFT">Microsoft</a> taking the top spot when BrandZ began in 2006. This year, Alibaba (valued at $131.2 billion) overtook Tencent ($130.9 billion) to become the most valuable Chinese brand. There is a total of 15 Chinese brands in the list of 100 companies, including mobile handset company Xiaomi (valued at $19.8 billion) and Meituan ($18.8 billion), a tech platform people can use to order food deliveries, book hotel rooms and arrange bike rentals.



David Roth, chair of BrandZ, said the companies that did well were those that mastered this new model of different services. “Brands need to understand the value this type of model can create and should embrace its approach to be successful in the future,” he said in an emailed statement.



Tech, finance and retail brands dominate the overall ranking, making up more than two-thirds of its value, while&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/04/the-luxury-sector-is-growing-faster-than-many-others-and-gucci-leads.html" class="">luxury is the fastest-growing category</a>.



To qualify for the ranking, brands must be publicly traded, or publish their financial results. BrandZ’s list combines measures of brand equity based on interviews with more than 3 million consumers about thousands of brands, with analysis of each company’s business and financial performance, using data from Kantar Worldpanel.



The world’s most valuable brands 2019



<ol><li>Amazon $315.5 billion</li><li>Apple $309.5 billion</li><li>Google $309 billion</li><li>Microsoft $251.2 billion</li><li>Visa $177.9 billion</li><li>Facebook $159 billion</li><li>Alibaba $131.2 billion</li><li>Tencent $130.9 billion</li><li>McDonald’s $130.4 billion</li><li>AT&amp;T $108.4 billion</li></ol>



Source: BrandZ



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/11/amazon-beats-apple-and-google-to-become-the-worlds-most-valuable-brand.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/11/amazon-beats-apple-and-google-to-become-the-worlds-most-valuable-brand.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Amazon beats Apple and Google to become the world’s most valuable brand

By Tom Huddleston Jr.*



MacKenzie Bezos could soon be one of the wealthiest women in the world after she and husband Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO and the world’s richest person, announced their decision to divorce after 25 years of marriage.



The couple announced the decision in a joint statement that Jeff Bezos posted on Twitter on Wednesday morning. The decision to divorce comes after “a long period of loving exploration and trial separation,” the couple says in the statement.<a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1083004911380393985/photo/1">View image on Twitter</a>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1083004911380393985/photo/1"><img decoding="async" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DwebBAHVYAEMEv2?format=jpg&amp;name=small" alt="View image on Twitter"/></a></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos"><img decoding="async" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/669103856106668033/UF3cgUk4_normal.jpg" alt=""/></a></figure>



<a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos">Jeff Bezos✔@JeffBezos</a><a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1083004911380393985"></a><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1083004911380393985">31.6K</a><a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1083004911380393985">4:17 PM &#8211; Jan 9, 2019</a><a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1083004911380393985">11.5K people are talking about this</a><a href="https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256">Twitter Ads info and privacy</a>



Any divorce settlement they reach could be one of the largest ever, considering Bezos’ massive wealth. Jeff Bezos boasts a net worth of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/jeffrey-p-bezos/" class="">roughly $137 billion</a>, according to Bloomberg’s most recent estimate. CNBC Make It’s most recent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/jeff-bezos-launches-day-one-fund-charity-how-he-spends-his-billions.html" class="">look at Bezos’ assets</a>&nbsp;reveals multimillion-dollar homes across the U.S. (including in Medina, Washington and Beverly Hills, California, each worth $25 million, according to WealthX). But, as of October, more than 90 percent of Bezos’ wealth was tied up in Amazon stock, of which he owns about 80 million shares.



Since Jeff and MacKenzie were married before he founded Amazon in 1994 — and because the laws in the state of Washington say that all assets acquired during a marriage can be split equally — it’s possible that MacKenzie could walk away from their divorce with half of her husband’s net worth, or about $66 billion, based on Amazon’s current value,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/how-much-could-mackenzie-bezos-get-in-a-divorce.html" class="">CNBC reported</a>&nbsp;today. (The world’s richest woman is currently Walmart heiress Alice Walton, whose net worth was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferwang/2018/03/06/richest-women/#7610735481f1" class="">$46 billion</a>&nbsp;in 2018, according to Forbes.)



Whether or not Jeff and MacKenzie actually do split his fortune down the middle — a divorce attorney told CNBC’s Robert Frank that’s unlikely because so much of Bezos’ wealth is tied to him continuing to control his Amazon share, plus it is not clear if the couple has any sort of pre-nuptial agreement — their divorce still makes it likely that MacKenzie will soon have a substantial fortune of her own. (MacKenzie&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/reuters-america-update-5-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-and-wife-mackenzie-to-divorce.html" class="">reportedly</a>&nbsp;does not currently own any shares of Amazon.)



So who is MacKenzie Bezos?



MacKenzie grew up in San Francisco, where her father worked as a financial planner. She earned an English degree at Princeton University in 1992 (roughly six years after Jeff graduated from the same school), and she first met her future husband later that same year. She’d moved to New York City in search of a job and she met Jeff when he interviewed her for a job at the hedge fund where he was working, D.E. Shaw.



The two ended up with offices next to one another and MacKenzie soon became enamored with Bezos and his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/20/15358878/neil-gaiman-vr-virtual-reality-sandman-recode-podcast" class="">loud, distinctive laugh</a>. “My office was next door to his, and all day long I listened to that fabulous laugh,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/a-novel-perspective-mackenzie-bezos" class="">she told Vogue</a>&nbsp;in a 2013 interview. “How could you not fall in love with that laugh?”



MacKenzie kicked things off with Bezos by asking him out to lunch and, after dating for only three months, they were engaged. Another three months later, they got married. That was 1993 and MacKenzie was only 23, while Jeff was 29.



Not long after, Jeff&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/27/amazons-jeff-bezos-son-of-a-teen-mom-to-richest-person-in-the-world.html" class="">had the idea that would become Amazon.com</a>. “I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that,” Jeff said in a 2010 address at his alma mater, Princeton.



MacKenzie told him to go for it and in 1994 the couple moved from New York to Seattle, with&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090204204126/http://www.portfolio.com/resources/executive-profiles/Jeffrey-P-Bezos-1984" class="">Jeff writing a business plan</a>&nbsp;for his online bookstore on the cross-country drive. He launched the company out of their garage that summer.



When Vogue asked Jeff in 2013 about what drew him to MacKenzie, the billionaire listed a few of her attributes while also joking about the added insight he gained from interviewing her for a job. “I think my wife is resourceful, smart, brainy, and hot, but I had the good fortune of having seen her résumé before I met her, so I knew exactly what her SATs were,” he said.



While Jeff built Amazon into an e-commerce behemoth that briefly reached a $1 trillion valuation in 2018, MacKenzie rediscovered a passion for writing that she had developed in college, where she studied fiction under Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. (Morrison&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/a-novel-perspective-mackenzie-bezos" class="">told Vogue</a>that MacKenzie was “one of the best students I’ve ever had in my creative-writing classes.”)



MacKenzie is the author of two novels: “The Testing of Luther Albright,” published in 2005, and 2013′s “Traps.”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/books/review/the-testing-of-luther-albright-home-improvement.html" class="">The New York Times called</a>&nbsp;the first of those two novels, which won an American Book Award in 2006, a “quietly absorbing first novel” about “an emotionally repressed husband and father.” (Though Amazon has its own book publishing imprint, MacKenzie’s novels were published by Fourth Estate and Knopf, respectively. They are among the titles sold on Amazon.)



MacKenzie took roughly a decade to write her first book, she told Vogue in 2013, partially because she wanted to spend more time with her children (she gave birth to the first of the couple’s four children in 2000), which took time out of her writing schedule. In 2013, she said she had gone as far as renting a one-bedroom apartment near the Bezos’ Washington home where she could spend time writing uninterrupted.



In addition to her writing career, MacKenzie also founded the anti-bullying organization Bystander Revolution in 2014. She serves as executive director of the organization,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bystanderrevolution.org/about" class="">which says</a>&nbsp;it’s “ultimate goal is the discussion and spread of simple habits of kindness, courage, and inclusion.” The organization’s website aims to offer solutions to bullying along with suggestions for how the average person can defuse situations involving bullying.



The organization has worked with celebrities like Monica Lewinsky, actress Lily Collins, and NFL star Tom Brady to produce anti-bullying videos.



“A lot of the conventional wisdom about bullying is that it is a cultural norm that can’t be overcome,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2015/0508/Bystander-Revolution-stands-up-to-bullying" class="">MacKenzie said in 2015</a>. “But there are so many small things an individual can do to help that have a huge impact.”



Meanwhile, in 2018, Jeff and MacKenzie announced their&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/technology/jeff-and-mackenzie-bezos-pledge-2-billion-for-homeless-and-preschoolers.html" class="">pledge</a>&nbsp;to donate $2 billion to a new philanthropic fund that will go toward helping homeless families and funding preschools in underserved communities. The move&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/jeff-bezoss-new-2-billion-philanthropic-fund-faces-many-unanswered-questions.html" class="">followed criticism</a>&nbsp;of Jeff Bezos for what had been a lack of philanthropic activities. And, while Jeff and MacKenzie are splitting up, their announcement still left room for them to work together in the future on projects like the philanthropic fund.



The couple described their relationship going forward this way: “We also see wonderful futures ahead as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures.”



This article first appeared on CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/mackenzie-bezos-could-become-one-of-the-richest-women-in-the-world.html and is republished with its permission

Meet MacKenzie Bezos. She could soon be the wealthiest women in the world

(Reuters) &#8211; Amazon.com Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O">AMZN.O</a>) on Tuesday joined Apple Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O">AAPL.O</a>) in the $1 trillion club, becoming the second member of the group after its stock price doubled in 15 months.
If the online retailer’s share price continues at its recent pace, it will be a matter of when, not if, Amazon’s market valuation eclipses that of iPhone maker Apple, which reached $1 trillion on Aug. 2.
Apple took almost 38 years as a public company to achieve the trillion dollar milestone, while Amazon got there in 21 years. While Apple’s iPhone and other devices remain popular and its revenues are growing, it is not keeping up with Amazon’s blistering sales growth.
Amazon has impressed investors by successfully diversifying its business into virtually every corner of the retail industry, altering how consumers buy products and putting major pressure on many brick-and-mortar stores.
It also provides video streaming services and bought upscale supermarket Whole Foods. And its cloud computing services for companies have become a major driver of earnings and revenue.
“Amazon’s a little bit more dynamic than Apple because the iPhone has become more mature. Amazon’s cloud business is an extra growth driver that Apple doesn’t have,” said Daniel Morgan, portfolio manager at Synovus Trust in Atlanta, Georgia who describes Amazon’s cloud services as its “crown jewel.”
In the second quarter the unit accounted for 55 percent of Amazon’s operating income and 20 percent of total revenue, according to Morgan.
Apple started trading in December 1980 but its stock did not truly start to take flight for another 25 years, spurred by the iPhone, the breakthrough device that left competitors in the dust.
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Amazon &#8211; founded as an online book-retailer in Chief Executive Jeff Bezos’ garage in 1994 &#8211; started trading on May 15 1997 at $1.50 on a split-adjusted basis.
By October 2009 it had risen to $100 and the stock hit $1,000 for the first time on May 30, 2017. It has held above that level since October 27, 2017.
Just 10 months later, on Aug. 30, Amazon shares hit $2,000 for the first time, just $50 per share away from giving the company a $1 trillion market value. That milestone, just a month after it reached a $900 billion valuation threshold.
Amazon shares were last up 1.1 percent at $2,035.69, pulling back slightly from the milestone level of $2050.2677.
Amazon currently trades up 74.0 percent for the year to date. In comparison, Apple has risen about34.7 percent year to date.
Analysts expect Apple’s revenue to jump 14.9 percent in its fiscal year ending in September, according to Thomson Reuters data, a hefty rise but still far short of Amazon’s expected revenue growth of 32 percent for 2018.
<div></div>
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<div class="Attribution_attribution">
Additional reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli
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Amazon becomes second publicly traded U.S. company to reach $1 trillion market value, why it could pass Apple

<a class="inline_quotes" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=AAPL" data-gdsid="8016" data-inline-quote-symbol="AAPL">Apple</a> hit a $1 trillion market cap on Thursday, making the iPhone maker the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach the record valuation.
But it isn’t the first company to claim the $1 trillion title. In 2007, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-market-cap-hits-1-trillion-1533225150">WSJ</a> notes, <a href="http://quotes.wsj.com/PTR">PetroChina</a>&#8216;s market cap surpassed that level and Saudi Arabian Oil, the state-owned oil company in an initial public offering, that later stalled, was valued at as much as $2 trillion.
The stock rose nearly 3 percent following a strong <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/31/apple-earnings-q3-2018.html">third-quarter earnings report</a> earlier this week, briefly hitting a session high of $207.05 in midday trading before falling back below $207.
Based on a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/01/apple-1-trillion-share-price-threshold.html">recently adjusted</a> outstanding share count of 4,829,926,000 shares, a stock price of $207.05 nudged Apple over the finish line in the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/19/amazon-is-hot-on-apples-trail-in-the-race-to-1-trillion.html">race to one trillion</a>. Investors had previously been looking for a share price of $203.45, but the company&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/apple-buybacks-q2-2018.html">hefty stock buybacks</a> moved the threshold higher.
&#8220;I think it just speaks to just how powerful the Apple ecosystem has become over the last few decades,&#8221; GBH Insights analyst Dan Ives told CNBC after the historic market move. &#8220;This is not the end, that they hit $1 trillion. I view this as just kind of speaking to a new a stage of growth and profitability.&#8221;
Ives credited the company&#8217;s growing <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/31/apple-q3-2018-services-revenue.html">software and services revenue</a> with driving the valuation. The catch-all category — which includes the App Store, AppleCare, Apple Pay, iTunes and cloud services — posted record quarterly revenue of $9.55 billion for the June quarter.
&#8220;It just speaks to the vision that [co-founder Steve Jobs] and now [CEO Tim Cook] have had in making sure Apple isn&#8217;t just a hardware company,&#8221; Ives said.
<a class="inline_quotes" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=AMZN" data-gdsid="9399" data-inline-quote-symbol="AMZN">Amazon</a> had also been approaching the threshold, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/17/amazon-announces-2018-prime-day-results.html">surpassing $900 billion</a> in market value in July. Apple had quite the head start, though, hitting $900 billion <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/08/apple-aapl-market-capitalization-hits-900-billion-dollars.html">back in November</a>.
<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/01/wall-street-gushes-over-apples-earnings-path-to-trillion-intact.html">Many on Wall Street</a> noted earlier this week Apple was firmly on the path to $1 trillion. The so-called &#8220;dean of valuation&#8221; said the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/01/wall-street-dean-of-valuation-damodaran-says-apple-still-a-value.html">stock is still cheap</a> even at $1 trillion.

Apple first publicly traded U.S. company to hit a $1 trillion market cap

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<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/jeff-bezos/">Jeff Bezos</a> is the richest man in the world, with a fortune of over $90 billion.
According to Forbes and Bloomberg, the Amazon CEO had a net worth of over $89 billion as of the close of markets Wednesday, while <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/bill-gates/">Bill Gates</a> had a net worth of just over $90 billion.
<a class="inline_quotes" href="http://www.cnbc.com/quotes?symbol=AMZN" data-gdsid="9399" data-inline-quote-symbol="AMZN">Amazon&#8217;s</a> share price has jumped by more than $15 a share overnight, and was recently trading near that level, while Microsoft is down slightly. If the stocks hold up today, Bezos — who around 80 million shares of Amazon — will add more than $800 million to his fortune. That would put him past Gates, assuming the valuations of their non-stock holdings haven&#8217;t changed.
<div id="inline_movable_ad"> Of course, Amazon stock could pull back, or Microsoft could rally. But even if Bezos doesn&#8217;t end the day as the richest man, he will likely take the crown from Gates more permanently in the coming days and weeks.</div>
When he hits the mark, Bezos, who started selling books from his garage 22 years ago, becomes the first man to bump Gates from his perch in seven years and is only the sixth man to hold the &#8220;richest person&#8221; title in the past 30 years, according to Forbes.
Bezos&#8217; rise carries important symbolic weight — signaling Amazon&#8217;s unbridled power and value, presenting a new face of outsized wealth to the world and heralding a new kind of billionaire who is skeptical of philanthropy and has massive reach in culture, technology and media. Bezos will be a stark contrast to his fellow Seattle-area resident Gates, who has topped the list for much of the past quarter-century and devotes his time and money to philanthropy.
What&#8217;s most astounding about Bezos&#8217; rise is his recent wealth surge. He has been a billionaire for nearly 20 years, first making the Forbes list in 1998 with a net worth of $1.6 billion after Amazon&#8217;s IPO. He chugged along for the following decade, reaching $4.4 billion in 2007, gradually rising to $18.4 billion by 2012, ranking him 26th on the list.
But over the past two years, as Amazon&#8217;s stock has soared, so has Bezos&#8217; fortune. He owns 79.9 million shares, or just under 17 percent of the company. His net worth has grown by $70 billion over the past five years, surging by $45 billion in the last two years alone — possibly the largest wealth-creation surge in history.
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<div class="pro-video-chapters fall dyperf dyMonitor" data-adid="535383||2071|||">Of course, Bezos avoids talking publicly about his wealth. Like most tech tycoons, he insists he&#8217;s trying to change the world rather than get rich. In his commencement speech at Princeton, Bezos said he had the idea of selling books on the internet while he was working at a New York hedge fund. Torn between his high-paying job and a risky start-up, he chose the start-up.</div>
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&#8220;I took the less safe path to follow my passion and I&#8217;m proud of that choice,&#8221; he said.
Bezos may not only be the richest man in the world today — he might become the richest man ever, at least measured in pure dollars. At his peak Gates was worth $90 billion, marking the largest single fortune ever. With little sign that Amazon&#8217;s momentum may be slowing, Bezos could well be the first 12-digit man, worth $100 billion one day.
On Thursday, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/27/amazon-is-on-its-way-to-becoming-a-2000-stock-says-leading-analyst.html">a leading analyst said that Amazon &#8220;could be the first trillion-dollar company&#8221; with its stock doubling to $2,000.</a>
Indeed, Bezos&#8217; rise to the top of the rich list shows just how large and fast today&#8217;s biggest fortunes have become. In the 1980s, Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi was considered the richest man in the world with a net worth of around $4 billion. By 1995, when Gates first became the richest man, he was worth $12.9 billion.
By 2005, Gates was still topping the list at $50 billion.
In 1987, according to Forbes, there were 140 billionaires in the world with a combined net worth of $295 billion. Now, billionaires number 2,043 and have a combined $7.7 trillion. In fact there were more new billionaires in the world in 2016 — 233 — than the entire population of billionaires in 1987.
Gates has been the richest man for 18 of the past 23 years. The only interlopers were <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/carlos-slim/">Carlos Slim of Mexico,</a> who was the richest man between 2010 and 2012, and <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/warren-buffett/">Warren Buffett</a>, who was the richest in 2008.
Indeed, with the exception of Slim and the occasional overseas billionaire, Gates and Buffett have been a duopoly at the top of the rich list. Their close friendship and partnering in philanthropy made them a potent symbol of the philanthropic side of wealth.
Bezos will be a different figurehead. Unlike Gates, he is still actively running and building a business. He is far more press-averse, rarely giving interviews or public addresses. He is hyper-competitive. And he is only moderately — some would say barely — philanthropic.
But like Gates and Buffett, Bezos is not given to many flashy displays of wealth. He has loads of real estate — he bought the most expensive home in Washington, D.C., and owns homes in Beverly Hills, California, and New York along with his spread in Medina, Washington — and is one of the nation&#8217;s largest landowners, with over 300,000 acres.
He also owns The Washington Post and founded Blue Origin, the space-travel company. Yet Bezos drove his 1996 Honda Accord long after he became a billionaire.
When asked how his life changed when he became a billionaire he said: &#8220;Personally, it hasn&#8217;t changed at all. The big difference is that we now have $50 million in the bank, which is huge.&#8221;
With a net worth topping $90 billion, Bezos&#8217; definition of &#8220;huge&#8221; may have changed.
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Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest man

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MoneyMakers’ Bruce Whitfield speaks to Vian Chinner, CEO of Xineoh, about its connection to Amazon and why it is getting the attention of US venture capitalists.

An SA company with an Amazon connection

<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/jordan-novet/" rel="author">Jordan Novet</a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/jordannovet">@jordannovet</a>
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<li>Facebook plans to move WhatsApp, which is used by more than 1 billion people, from IBM&#8217;s SoftLayer cloud to Facebook&#8217;s own data centers.</li>
<li>The WhatsApp messaging app relies on more than 700 high-end IBM SoftLayer servers.</li>
<li>WhatsApp is one of IBM&#8217;s high-profile customers for its cloud service, which lags behind market leader Amazon Web Services, as well as Microsoft Azure.</li>
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<a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/FB" target="_self" data-gdsid="139619" data-inline-quote-symbol="FB">Facebook</a>&#8216;s WhatsApp messaging service, which is used by 1.2 billion people across the globe, is planning to move off of <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/IBM" target="_self" data-gdsid="20553" data-inline-quote-symbol="IBM">IBM</a>&#8216;s cloud and into Facebook&#8217;s own data centers, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The WhatsApp move, which could begin later this year, would result in IBM losing a high profile customer for its public cloud. A source claims that WhatsApp has been one of IBM&#8217;s top five public cloud customers in terms of revenue, and was at one point spending $2 million a month with IBM. (IBM says WhatsApp is not currently one of its top five public cloud customers.)
IBM&#8217;s public cloud business lags behind <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/AMZN" target="_self" data-gdsid="9399" data-inline-quote-symbol="AMZN">Amazon</a> Web Services (AWS), which is on top with 33 percent of the market in April, as well as <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/MSFT" target="_self" data-gdsid="25619" data-inline-quote-symbol="MSFT">Microsoft</a>&#8216;s Azure cloud, according to <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/28/cloud-market-share-data-synergy-research.html" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/28/cloud-market-share-data-synergy-research.html" target="_self">Synergy Research</a>.
Facebook <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/19/facebook-to-acquire-whatsapp-for-about-16-billion.html" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/19/facebook-to-acquire-whatsapp-for-about-16-billion.html" target="_self">acquired</a> WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014 and has left the app running on the servers it has always used. Other companies that Facebook has acquired over the years initially used similar IBM SoftLayer servers, and Facebook was quick to bring them in-house, another source said. But with WhatsApp, Facebook has taken a much longer time.
Part of the reason was prioritization. When Facebook bought WhatsApp, it was already in the midst of a <a class="inline_asset" title="https://www.wired.com/2014/06/facebook-instagram/" href="https://www.wired.com/2014/06/facebook-instagram/" target="_self">yearlong migration</a> of its Instagram photo-sharing app, which it acquired in 2012, from AWS to its own data centers.
Also, Facebook separated its own Messenger messaging and calling app out from the core Facebook app months after the WhatsApp acquisition, and the social network&#8217;s CEO, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/mark-zuckerberg/" target="_self">Mark Zuckerberg</a>, didn&#8217;t want WhatsApp to &#8220;get Facebooked&#8221; — in other words, to get integrated with its own apps too soon, a source said. Since then both Messenger and WhatsApp have gained hundreds of millions of users.
At IBM, WhatsApp is considered a poster child for its cloud, two sources said — just as AWS has the likes of Airbnb and Netflix to boast about, while <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/GOOGL" target="_self" data-gdsid="19004" data-inline-quote-symbol="GOOGL">Alphabet&#8217;s</a> Google points to Snap and Spotify. (<a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/SNAP" target="_self" data-gdsid="163704" data-inline-quote-symbol="SNAP">Snap</a>, which operates the Snapchat social media app, has committed to paying Google $2 billion and Amazon $1 billion for hosting over five years, the company <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/09/snap-cloud-bill-aws-google-cloud-higher-than-2016-revenue.html" target="_self">disclosed</a> in February.)
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IBM hasn&#8217;t broadly advertised its business with WhatsApp, although the company has detailed WhatsApp&#8217;s usage in an off-the-record case study, a source said. It shows that WhatsApp runs atop more than 700 high-end servers split between data centers in San Jose, California, and Washington, D.C. At one point Facebook was spending nearly $2 million per month on the IBM cloud, a second source said.
&#8220;WhatsApp has been a great client of IBM Cloud as they used our global footprint and capabilities to scale their business,&#8221; IBM said in a statement. &#8220;We are proud of the role of IBM Cloud in their success. It is completely natural for Facebook to seek synergies across their business.&#8221;
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
People sent 63 billion messages on WhatsApp on New Year&#8217;s Eve, Facebook said. That usage requires hefty computing resources. Presumably, the WhatsApp app will operate more efficiently once it&#8217;s using Facebook servers, which could help Facebook save money. It&#8217;s unlikely — although not impossible — that WhatsApp&#8217;s users will notice any changes during the migration.
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<h4 class="subtitle">A common move as companies grow</h4>
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Relying on a third-party cloud provider is common for young companies, which have to choose their priorities. But cloud costs can add up as companies grow. Dropbox and Zynga are among the companies that have reduced their dependence on AWS.
When WhatsApp started in 2009, its engineers chose to run the underlying code on hosted servers from SoftLayer, which was then an independent company.
Typically in the public cloud, software that would normally run on a single server is chopped up into slices that are known as virtual machines, and can also be further divided into containers, all of which lets them run more efficiently with less hardware.
But WhatsApp has long circumvented this type of cloud resource, opting instead to use so-called <a class="inline_asset" title="http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/3/31/how-whatsapp-grew-to-nearly-500-million-users-11000-cores-an.html" href="http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/3/31/how-whatsapp-grew-to-nearly-500-million-users-11000-cores-an.html" target="_self">bare-metal servers</a>, which can deliver better performance. The SoftLayer public cloud was best known as a provider of these bare-metal servers when IBM acquired SoftLayer for $2 billion in 2013, and its bare-metal offerings remain available alongside virtual machines under IBM&#8217;s Bluemix portfolio of cloud services.
While Facebook has housed its own servers and storage in co-located facilities from the very early days of the company, it started building its own data centers in 2010, following in the steps of Alphabet&#8217;s Google. Facebook has also designed a lot of its own data center hardware to improve efficiency, and has released many of the designs under the Open Compute Project, allowing low-cost manufacturers to build and sell the hardware to both Facebook and other companies. The company has saved more than $2 billion in data center costs by building in accord with the designs that it has shared in the Open Compute Project, an executive <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.infoworld.com/article/2895067/data-center/facebook-open-compute-project-billions-in-savings.html" href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/2895067/data-center/facebook-open-compute-project-billions-in-savings.html" target="_self">said</a> in 2015.
Last week Laurent Potdevin, CEO of athletic goods retailer Lululemon, <a class="inline_asset" title="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/02/lululemon-ceo-blames-ibm-for-site-outage.html" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/02/lululemon-ceo-blames-ibm-for-site-outage.html" target="_self">faulted IBM</a> for an outage of its website. But IBM did score a victory recently, signing <a class="inline_quotes" href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/LLOY-GB" target="_self" data-gdsid="23680" data-inline-quote-symbol="LLOY-GB">Lloyds Bank</a> to a 10-year deal, according to <a class="inline_asset" title="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/lloyds_confirms_ibm_cloudy_outsourcing/" href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/lloyds_confirms_ibm_cloudy_outsourcing/" target="_self">The Register</a>.
Disclosure: <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/03/nbc-invests-500-million-in-snapchat-ipo.html" target="_self">CNBC parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Snap</a>.
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