So it was no surprise that Amazon’s deal to buy Whole Foods for $13.4 billion generated many fantastical predictions: For instance, Amazon could use every Whole Foods store as a distribution center<br />or even a drone-delivery launchpad, with every order summoned by Alexa, the company’s voice assistant, creating a kind of “frictionless” retail experience that would hasten its plan to — what else?<br />In Whole Foods, Bezos Gets a Sustainably Sourced Guinea Pig -<br />By purchasing the upscale chain, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief, has a chance to tinker<br />with how people buy groceries — and map the future of the physical store.<br />So the best way to think of this deal is to look at Whole Foods as a kind of guinea pig<br />for Amazon — a pricey, organically sourced one, perhaps, but a guinea pig all the same.<br />Yet if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, after years of watching Amazon, it’s<br />that he doesn’t spend a lot of time predicting future possibilities.<br />The company’s $13.4 billion deal for Whole Foods is the latest signal of Amazon’s ambitions to have a hold on nearly<br />every facet our lives — like the computer servers that power our favorite websites and the food we eat.<br />Instead, Mr. Bezos and his team will most likely spend years meticulously analyzing and tinkering with how Whole Foods works.<br />Amazon almost certainly doesn’t know yet how exactly Whole Foods will fit into its long-term plans.
