The Peculiar Genius of Jeff Bezos

Some people interpreted my post yesterday on Amazon's slim and falling earnings as a slam on the company, but while I do find it a bit baffling, I'm by no means a critic. And I'm certainly not trying to give anyone stock advice. The only investment-related advice I would give on this point is that Amazon's sky-high price-earnings ratio compared with rival retailers or rival tech companies illustrates the point that investing is hard and the stock market is weird. What Bezos has put together is a real achievement. A great business leader is someone who builds a great company, and Amazon is unquestionably a great company. It's taken a lot of skill to build it. And one of Bezos' most impressive skills is extracting patience from Wall Street. Everyone would feel much better about, say, Facebook if they weren't trying so hard to show large and growing profits. But for all Mark Zuckerberg's co...