This argument is funny to me mainly because I hear it all the time, about how different they are because they don't want to be profitable. The other thing management is supposed to do is manage cash flow and profit in such a way as to reduce risk (by piling up cash, not too much of course, but just enough...). They also survived the dot com crash because they were thrifty and always kind of cash flow break even.
Amazon simply does not need to have cash on hand. They can attain massive profits at literally any point by just increasing their margins ever so slightly across whatever business lines they operate in. This is the benefit of the scale they operate at.
They would have profits if they stopped reinvesting the proceeds from retail into new businesses. They wouldn't need to increase their margins or reduce costs, just stop willfully adding new costs.
