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Could Amazon Go The Way Of Sears Roebuck?

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos presents the company's first smartphone, the Fire Phone, on June 18, 2014 in Seattle, Washington. (David Ryder/Getty Images)
Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos presents the company's first smartphone, the Fire Phone, on June 18, 2014 in Seattle, Washington. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

Amazon is the world’s largest e-commerce company, but it is trying to be so much more — a mobile carrier, a media company and a major provider of cloud computing services, to name a few.

But is this behemoth internet retailer vulnerable? New York magazine technology columnist Kevin Roose wanted to find out. “Amazon really has unbounded ambitions,” Roose told Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson. “What I wanted to find out is how can you take down Amazon?”

In a piece called “6 Ways Competitors Are Trying to Kill Amazon,” Roose wrote: “Sears Roebuck withered, in part because it made the mistake of over-­diversification… There’s some evidence that Amazon is overextending itself in similar ways.”

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