Amazon Kept Laughing After Dot-Com Bust

Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon emerged from the dot-com bust as a mighty triumvirate, but only Amazon has kept its mojo in the decade's latter stages, the Economist reports. Yahoo, the oldest of the lot at 14, shooed away Microsoft, surrendered part of its business to Google, and failed to stay current. It survives, “but on the web’s equivalent of life support."

EBay enjoyed a cult following, but has since alienated users and suffered declines—and the e-auctioneer seems unlikely to steer toward a brighter future. Amazon, meantime, hasn’t lost its luster—or its founder. Jeff Bezos has stuck to his original vision, adding key revisions with pioneering bravado. “Bezos is right where he wants to be,” the Economist concludes. (More Amazon stories.)