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There's been a lot. Amazon generally avoids press, but they launch stuff that fails all the time. I'd say only 1/3 things they launch (or get really close to launching internally) is actually successful. Since they avoid press, people don't hear about things that fail. Their success rate has been higher with some AWS services, but if you could see their track record internally (basically things that make it to beta) vs. success 5 years later, it's probably under 30%.

Off the top of my head, their investment of $175M in LivingSocial [0] comes to mind.

Also, though they're generally considered successes now, I recall no shortage of naysayers trying to claim the Kindle, Prime and AWS as failures.

0: http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/02/livingsocial-confirms-175-m...

Auctions. They didn't destroy eBay as many thought they would.