And I'd add that a high price hurts Walmart more than Amazon. Amazon's market cap is 3x Walmart's. Amazon has $31 billion in cash and short-term investments; Walmart has about $7 billion. On top of this, presumably Walmart will be investing heavily in expansion.
I think Walmart's stinginess is also an important point here. At this price, plus the additional money they put in, a good ROI gets harder. Bezos has never really cared about short-term ROI, but I wonder if Walmart will be inclined to be impatient or under-invest later because of the high price now.
Is anyone besides Google contributing. I think I read Google is giving $3B so that’s a decent chunk.
I’m guessing they wanted Softbank out for control in general and since Softbank loves to control, otherwise they could’ve saved another $4B and let Softbank keep 20% control.
I think Walmart's stinginess is also an important point here. At this price, plus the additional money they put in, a good ROI gets harder. Bezos has never really cared about short-term ROI, but I wonder if Walmart will be inclined to be impatient or under-invest later because of the high price now.