Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos admits the fact that antitrust scrutiny remains a primary imminent threat to his e-commerce business empire. In his annual letter to Amazon shareholders, Bezos points out the fact that the percentage of Amazon goods sold by independent third-parties has gone from 3% in 1999 to about 60% in early-2019. Also, Bezos emphasizes the essential need for Amazon to fail fast forward through numerous informative experiments. In particular, the size of failures has to grow exponentially with the socioeconomic impact of revolutionary inventions such as artificial intelligence, robotic automation, the main strategic healthcare venture with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase, and the landmark acquisition of Whole Foods. With respect to stakeholder value maximization, Bezos plans to pay most Amazon employees, upstream suppliers, and downstream customers with better terms, wages, returns, and benefits.

Meanwhile, Amazon operates at least 10 brick-and-mortar stores in Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle. Bezos expects to open more Amazon Go brick-and-mortar stores and checkout lines. In light of all the progressive milestones, Amazon may face inevitably closer antitrust scrutiny as the e-commerce tech titan continues to expand its operational scale and scope. A plausible future scenario may entail the strategic separation of Amazon cloud services from the retail business.