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Book Review: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Brad Stone spent years researching Amazon as a journalist, speaking to Bezos a handful of times in the process. His footwork clearly shows in the book, which is exhaustively detailed without ever feeling bogged down. The most surprising thing, perhaps, is that Bezos didn’t start Amazon.com out of an all-consuming love for books, although he reads voraciously; in the early 1990s, realizing that the Internet was the Next Big Thing, he drew up a list of potential products that best fit the nascent e-commerce model in his head, including computer software and music.
“The category that eventually jumped out at him as the best option was books,” Stone writes. “They were pure commodities; a copy of a book in one store was identical to the same book carried in another, so buyers always knew what they were getting.” At the time, only two major distributors actually handled shipping books, which would make it easier for Bezos to set up a supply chain; and in reasonably short order, his growing team figured out how to get each volume to the customer relatively intact.
Much of the book details Amazon’s rapid growth in the years preceding the dot-com bubble. In his quest to create an “everything store” capable of shipping a wide variety of products to nearly anywhere in the world with a mailing address, Bezos pushed his employees relentlessly; many couldn’t take the pace. Even as customers ordered books, movies, and other goods from a handsome and smoothly running Website, the underlying infrastructure strained to handle all that traffic; meanwhile, the warehouse and distribution operations (headed up by executives poached from WalMart) evolved into a lab of sorts, as the company did its best to figure out how to ship products in the quickest and most efficient ways. (Praise today’s startups all you want, but most of them never have to handle real-world logistics on a massive scale.)
The book paints a nuanced portrait of the hard-driving Bezos, who comes off as a spectacularly unsentimental individual more than willing to fight to the bitter end with pretty much anyone to get what he wants. Stone offers up a bit about Bezos’ childhood—even as a youngster he was ambitious, and technically inclined—and tracks down his biological father, who was unaware that his son had grown up to become a billionaire businessman. (When they finally communicate, it’s by email; Bezos writes a quick message that he bears the old man no ill will for leaving him as a baby, and wishes him “the very best.”) But the overall focus here is on Bezos the Businessman, plunging into the details of everything from the Kindle to free shipping, and determined above all else to conquer the world’s marketplaces.
This is one of those biographies that will probably end up on the shelf of every self-styled “entrepreneur” and Internet CEO looking for a role model. For those who’re merely interested in Amazon, e-commerce, or stories about people who bulldoze their way to success, The Everything Store is a highly entertaining read.
You can purchase from... the everything store. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews (sci-fi included) — to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
There is a 90% chance of any given book review on slashdot having that score. You'd think it would be the other way around, but no; poor, pitiful, neglected 6/10.
I thought Huckabees was the everything store.
Fuck these shill reviews. Bezos is an asshole and so is the person who gave this book a 9/10.
According to a song by The Frantics, Roots has everything... including gimp masks and branded dildoes.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
They are like the bad old Microsoft in one sense: they use their capital (and investors tolerant of many consecutive quarters with no profits) and the cash horde they accumulate in one market to become predatory competitors in another market, kinda like Napolean's military strategy (BTW young Bill Gates was reported to have read *many* biographies of Napolean). So, that's the way it should be, some might say. But wait, Bezos is not doing this to be your friend; once he drives out the most effective competition in a segment (music CDs, for example), he'll jack up the prices once again so he can get a cash cow for his next target. So don't get too used to those big discounts.
Amazon isn't the "everything store" until you can buy a house there. In the early 20th century you could buy a house from Sears. Of course I'm sure there were plenty of details left for the purchaser.
Anyway, Amazon is the closest thing to a 21st Century Sears. People comment on Amazon listings and discuss them just like people used to salivate over stuff in a Sears catalog.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I was always a low level engineer so I can't claim that I personally interacted with either Gates or Bezos (although one time I nearly slammed a door into Bill's head but I don't see the point of dwelling on missed opportunities).
From my PoV they are both driven individuals who also drove their employees hard. However I think Bezos is the better businessman. Both of them generate a significant amount of fear with their underlings. You never wanted BillG going off in your product review and I saw people turn white when they got the infamous one character email from Bezos (the character in question being '?'). But at MS the fear was all theatrics. There is a huge amount of outright morons that to this day constitute a large chunk of MS middle management and not only are they allowed to screw up project after project, they often get rewarded for it (I have seen one rise from first line manager to corporate VP; hasn't shipped anything in 15 years).
At Amazon consequences were real, and went far beyond mere humiliation at the hands of the boss. I have seen director level people being asked to empty their desks within the hour. As a cog this filled me with joy.
From my experience most rivals are alike, that's why they compete.
Personally, I would have respected Bezos's wish not to have any knowledge of or involvement with his biological father. Seems like a simple matter of courtesy.
Jobs and Bezos are Galts among men. Rich and successful not BECAUSE of government theft and incompetence (as NObama would have us believe) but DESPITE it. God Bless The Free Market! God Bless Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos!
...are kind of defined by the fact that they share many similarities.
Amazon's purpose is to destroy profit margins. They are doing everything they can to eliminate "friction", that is the ability for people to make money selling things by reducing profits to the point no one could survive. If Amazon was ultimately successful, no one could make any money on anything. So why do investors like them? In an Amazon world, companies which sell products would offer Amazon deep discounts, and then people would pay Amazon for Amazon Prime, and companies would sell through Amazon's warehouses, and Amazon would get a cut of everything, and there wouldn't be any profit left.
We're geeks and nerds, right? Look at Dover math books. Over the past couple of years (or so), Dover has essentially doubled the price of their books to allow Amazon and others to sell them 40% off. Dover math books were in the $10-15 range a few years ago, and now they're all almost $30, but online the price is reduced to around $15-20. Dover is an extreme example of the Amazon discount effect where a publisher has to jack up prices to allow deep discounts. Most trade paperbacks are over $20 now, and a few years ago they were $15 or less. This isn't because of inflation, it's jacking up the price so the 40% online discounts don't hurt so bad.
Jobs couldn't have done Apple without Woz. Was Bezos the same way, or did he have a techie to complement his marketing skills?
Every time you "Add to Cart", you push a local store, mall, strip center, etc., closer to shutting their doors.
You want a "Nail Salon" economy in your future? Keep supporting online stores.
When something goes wrong Amazon really sorts things out.
With an Asian based company with no local presence where I live? Good luck with that one.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You pay me the difference and I'll buy local.
Oh wait you also have to pay for my time.
And other costs (parking and/or transportation to name only the most obvious)
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Its like you read my message mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with some pics to drive the home a bit, but instead of that, this is excellent blog. A fantastic read. I will certainly be back
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