Amazon.com reached a billion-dollar sales rate with just $30 million in inventory and $30 million in net plant and equipment.
Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
The evidence is the person's or their organisation's own records.
Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.
What would count as true or false
Judge as of early 1999, against Amazon's fiscal 1998 records. 'Billion-dollar sales rate' means annualized sales (for example Q4 1998 sales times four) of about $1 billion. True: Amazon's 1998 10-K or quarterly filings show an annualized sales run rate of about $1 billion or more by late 1998 or early 1999, year-end 1998 inventory of about $30 million (within about 10%), and year-end 1998 net fixed assets of about $30 million (within about 10%). Mostly true: the run rate and one balance-sheet figure match and the other is off by a modest amount (about 10–25%). Mixed: the run rate holds but both inventory and net fixed assets are clearly off, or the balance-sheet figures hold but the run rate was well below $1 billion. Mostly false: the figures are real but from different dates, combined to overstate how efficient the model was. False: the filings show the run rate, inventory and net fixed assets all clearly different from the stated figures (for example inventory well above $50M). A formal restatement governs over the original figure.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (3)
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E1 Amazon.com Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter 1998 Amazon.com, Inc. (press release) · 26 January 1999 Own record
“Net sales for the fourth quarter were $252.9 million, an increase of 283 percent over net sales of $66.0 million for the fourth quarter of 1997. Based on fourth quarter sales, Amazon.com has achieved a $1 billion annualized sales level three and one-half years after opening for business.”
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E2 Amazon.com Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter 1998 Amazon.com, Inc. (press release) · 26 January 1999 Own record
“Inventories 29,501 8,971”
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E3 Amazon.com Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter 1998 Amazon.com, Inc. (press release) · 26 January 1999 Own record
“Fixed assets, net 29,791 9,726”
Reasoning
Amazon's Q4 1998 results release reports fourth-quarter net sales of $252.9 million and says this was a $1 billion annualized sales level (E1). The release's balance sheet shows inventories of 29,501 against 8,971 in the prior column (E2) and net fixed assets of 29,791 against 9,726 (E3). The rows don't state the date or units, but in the context of the Q4 1998 release they match year-end 1998 figures of about $30 million each. All of this comes from Amazon's own official release, with no independent source to confirm it.
Cite this claim
Jeff Bezos, “Amazon.com reached a billion-dollar sales rate with just $30 million in inventory and $30 million in net plant and equipment.” (said 1999). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_23db2d157d95, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_23db2d157d95
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Resolved true
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.