To the victors go the spoils.  In the world of high tech business, Amazon has been one of the victors. And the spoils have been smaller companies.  In the past year, Amazon has acquired at least six companies, Julianne Pepitone reports for CNN Money.  Pepitone tells te story of three startups that became part of Amazon: Exchange.com, AmieStreet.com, and Zappos. Each acquisition had a different ending.  Exchange.com was brought inside Amazon headquarters.  Zappos has so far continued to operate largely as it always has.  And ArnieStreet.com was basically swallowed up after being acquired last year:

In September, immediately after the acquisition, Amazon announced it was shutting down AmieStreet.com and redirecting its users to Amazon.com. Users' downloaded songs were ported over to Amazon, but that was the end of the demand-based pricing -- and the AmieStreet.com business model.

"There was no understanding or guarantee as far as a go-forward plan," Roman says. "We didn't know what they were going to do, and we didn't have anything to do with the day-to-day anymore."

Amie Street, Inc., still exists and Amazon remains an investor and board member of the company. Without its namesake site, Amie Street now focuses on Songza, a music-streaming service the company acquired in 2008.

Read Why I sold to Amazon: 3 startups' stories here.