I'm Robert Davis. I built Wal-Mart's first e-commerce website in 1993, then left for Amazon in 1998 after betting my badge that online retail would be huge. The CEO disagreed. AMA.
I'm Robert Davis, and I spent the early 90s building Wal-Mart's first online store, one of the earliest major retail e-commerce sites. By 1998, we had over 100,000 products across 15+ categories and it was working.
But Wal-Mart leadership didn't see the potential. In late summer 1998, I walked into CEO David Glass's office and told him I was "betting my badge" (a Wal-Mart expression meaning putting your job on the line) on e-commerce. I asked him to get the company's merchandising and distribution divisions fully behind it.
He refused. He told me the online store would never do more sales than a single Sam's Club.
So I gave notice and joined Amazon, where I worked for over 12 years.
Wal-Mart's e-commerce went dormant for two years after I left. It took them until early 2025, 30 years after we started, to report their first quarterly profit in e-commerce.
I had the rare experience of working closely with both Sam Walton and Jeff Bezos. I've watched my story get told in books (like Jason Del Rey's "Winner Sells All"), but figured it was time to tell it directly.
My LinkedIn profile has lots more details.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-davis-walmart-amazon/
AMA Never done this before. Be gentle.
Posted Feb 15, 2026, 8:44 PM UTC