So it was no surprise that Amazon’s deal to buy Whole Foods for $13.4 billion generated many fantastical predictions: For instance, Amazon could use every Whole Foods store as a distribution center
or even a drone-delivery launchpad, with every order summoned by Alexa, the company’s voice assistant, creating a kind of “frictionless” retail experience that would hasten its plan to — what else?
In Whole Foods, Bezos Gets a Sustainably Sourced Guinea Pig -
By purchasing the upscale chain, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief, has a chance to tinker
with how people buy groceries — and map the future of the physical store.
So the best way to think of this deal is to look at Whole Foods as a kind of guinea pig
for Amazon — a pricey, organically sourced one, perhaps, but a guinea pig all the same.
Yet if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, after years of watching Amazon, it’s
that he doesn’t spend a lot of time predicting future possibilities.
The company’s $13.4 billion deal for Whole Foods is the latest signal of Amazon’s ambitions to have a hold on nearly
every facet our lives — like the computer servers that power our favorite websites and the food we eat.
Instead, Mr. Bezos and his team will most likely spend years meticulously analyzing and tinkering with how Whole Foods works.
Amazon almost certainly doesn’t know yet how exactly Whole Foods will fit into its long-term plans.
