THE EVERYTHING STORE – JEFF BEZOS AND THE AGE OF AMAZON – Brad Stone

 the pic is titled “Jeff Bezos iconic laugh

 

A fascinating account  of visionary entrepreneur /business tycoon/tyrant Jeff Bezos  and the birth and rapid growth of Amazon over the last 17 years..

JB emerges as the manic visionary who practically invented on-line shopping.  His business mantras (known as Jeffisms by his acolytes) are: Frugality and Customer Satisfaction. Incidentally, he’s clearly  the Boss from Hell, I would hate to work for Amazon. Apparently the company is renowned for burnouts and rapid departures. Hardly surprising, given Amazon’s meteoric growth since 1995. Squads of talented, bright people have worked for JB and contributed to Amazon’s success.

I thought Amazon.com was just a book retailer but they’ve morphed from their original concept literally into an Everything Store : clothing/ tools /jewellery/baby supplies/ DVDs – you name it, riding roughshod over competitors en route.  Because of their mega sized operation they can play the long game, waging a war of attrition with ever decreasing prices until their smaller competitors roll over and die or sell out to the giant. JBs vision led his company into development of the Kindle, space travel , the smartphone, and cloud storage for computer data. It’s worth following the Wikipedia link here to read more detail about amazon.com .  http://Jeff Bezos. http://amazon.com  

Bezos seemingly does not understand the meaning of words like boundaries and limits. Having taken Amazon so far, one wonders what he can possibly dream up next? Is there anything left to visualize?  Personally, I wish he’d turn his laser-gaze on to a cure for the common cold.  He’d certainly make another gazillion dollars if he did.  Apparently JB is not motivated by money or a flashy lifestyle – Brad Stone shows a man who values his family’s privacy and lives a relatively modest life.  Stone’s engrossing  book is  crammed with facts, figures, history, fascinating anecdotes. That’s why I chose the photo above, because apparently Bezos has an iconic laugh.

You don’t have to be an MBA student to read and appreciate the book – I certainly am not, but I  read every page with great interest and enjoyment. Highly recommended.