Jeff Bezos: The Force Behind the Brand: Insight and Analysis into the Life and Accomplishments of the Richest Man on the Planet (Billionaire Visionaries)

Bezos was born in 1964 Albuquerque to a then unwed mother. ('Pops,' her father, came from a line of settlers - he enlarged the family ranch to 25,000 acres, and was also Regional Director of the AEC. She eventually married a Cuban immigrant of Spanish descent (Miguel) who came here via Operation Peter Pan (15,000 children airlifted in - without parents; his future stepfather was 15 at the time and Jeff would be four when Miguel adopted him). Miguel (Mike) became an EE.Pops taught self-reliance to Jeff. Usually Jeff worked summers at the ranch; one year he instead got a part-time job at McDonald's. Hating every moment, he quit after a few days and started a summer camp ($600/, for a 10-day event for 4th - 6th graders). Six enrollees (including a brother and sister) - the focus was teaching reasoning. The course included reading parts of 'The Lord of the Rings,' 'Dune,' 'Watership Down,' etc. The science component included space travel, use of fossil fuels, fission generators, etc.High school valedictorian (speech included evacuating humans for Earth), double major at Princeton - electrical engineering and computer science. .Bezos decided to start with books in July 1994 because books were the one item in mail order catalogs that fit well with online purchase and shipping - there were so many titles that nobody could print a catalog and send it to every household. In 1994, Americans spent over $60 billion on mail-order products. The first e-commerce sale was a Sting CD in 1994. The Internet solved that problem. Bezos saw the Internet as a channel to reach millions, and books as a product to start with. Amazon began business a year later.At the time there wasn't much you could get online - Amazon seemed to be an extension of a mail-order store where you got a catalog, then made a purchase over the phone. An Amazon catalog of books would have been larger than the NYC phone directory.After about 4 months Amazon was doing about $20,000/week in sales.He had decided to set up business in Seattle because of the tax structure there. (The Supreme Court ruled there would be no sales taxes collected from a company that didn't have physical presence in the state the sale was made - Washington has a low sales tax.) The next warehouse was in Delaware - no sales tax, the third in Reno (no sales tax, close to California.) Today it has a P/E ratio of 230, vs. 37 for Google, 46 for Alibaba, 17 for Apple, and 62 at Microsoft.More than 100,000 sellers made over $100,000 in 2016, customers spent $200 billion in Amazon in 2017, it has over 40% of the U.S. e-commerce market and over half a million employees. Amazon spent $1.5 billion on shipping in 2016, and took in $3.3 billion from 32 million Prime customers; Prime members spend an average $1,600/year vs. about $600/year for the rest.Bezos turned to 20 friends/family and raised $50,000 each for less than 1% of the company each. Overall, about 24 people contributed $1 million total for a sixth of the firm. that took about a year. Amazon went public in 1997, bringing in $148 million in revenue at that point. (About half startups make to the 5th year.)Bezos believed that objectives superseded all other events - if you want to do something, you do it before you set out on doing anything else and you are not done until you succeed. Effort towards significant achievement is not about rewards - its the internal satisfaction.It took 15 months to et the website ready.

me gusto como esta escrito, la simpleza lo hace mas comprensivo y didactico, imprecionante biografia.

This was a pretty good read, but nothing mind-blowing. It was a bit vague at times and he often repeats himself. Plus, I learned only a little bit of information about Bezos and Amazon but only got a glimpse of how it came about. I was looking for more detail, more mystery and development in a chronological story. This was a more thematic approach which is fine, but my style. I wanted the story and he presented facts. However, if you like a quick read and enjoy learning about the business world and what makes a successful business, then this will be a good read for you.

It is hard not to be impressed when reading about Jeff Bezos's success and the story behind Amazon. The author is neutral and does not address his faults, but does say he expects the same work ethic from his workers that he has modeled in his life. This might be tough for all the minimum wage workers, but the author doesn't take him to task on that, prefering to highlight hid more positive qualities.It is a good short read, with important lessons.

If your looking for a little digestible inspiration, this is it.

At first I thought that this was an authorized biography written by someone who had actually interviewed Mr. Bezos and other Amazon associates for this book. Yet, before ordering the book, I found it a bit strange that I was unable to find ANY information about the author--anywhere.Then, as I began reading the Kindle version, I noticed way too many typos and grammatical errors for any biography that the likes of Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk might authorize. I also was concerned that the book had no footnotes, leaving me to wonder about the overall accuracy of the content. All of that being said, I found the book to be a fast, interesting read, which is why I gave the author (not sure if male or female) 3 stars instead of 2.

The author wastes more time telling you what the book is about and what he will tell you about Bezos. The author also wastes time telling you the same things from one chapter to the others. I also don’t want to read about Jeff Bezos influence on the authors son. Tell us about Jeff and not about what you want to tell us about Jeff.If you can get past the author’s style, Jeff Bezos is one of very few people who is creatively single-minded and picks out a point or finally and doesn’t stop unit he is there. He doesn’t want to be bothered about how to do it, he just know how it has to be at completion. He is brilliant and a pleasure to learn about.

I think this is a great value for the money. It's a good read. I thought it was great to learn about how Jeff Bezos started out with a little and turned it into Billions. It shows that he is brilliant and made and continue to make great decisions. Also a Dreamer, visionary , and Genius. You go Jeff.

I was looking for a step by step recount of Besoz and Amazon’s rise with all the ups and downs the company faced and instead was dissapointed by a fluff piece with a few facts highlighted and the author desperately trying to compare himself to Bezos. I don’t want to know how the author relates to Bezos I want to know what he did so that I can be inspired not someone to tell me I should be. My expectations where completely let down and was very disappointed in this book. I would recommend Alibaba: the house that Jack Ma Built as an example of a brilliant biography or Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance which are a lot better. Jeff Bezos this is a biography about you on your shopping site perhaps you’d like to do some quality control?

Expected a compelling story about Jeff Bezos. In the end got an introduction how the author and his family get inspired by Bezos and hardly anything about the man. Also. couldn’t stand being reminded about 100 times in the book what it’s about and why he’s doing it.

Knew little about him so I enjoyed the book

I did not care for the author's writing style. The narrative was frequently repetitive and a lot of the time it seemed almost condescending to the reader in a way - asking questions of the reader to be self-reflecting and introspective; countless times using the perspective of "we" would do this or that, or feel this way. Unfortunately the author did not have any personal one-on-one interviews with Bezos, therefore I did not get a real sense of true insight into his life. I felt like it was based more on the author's presumption after some investigation. I would not recommend this book. The Elon Musk biography by Ashlee Vance is a far superior read and I would highly recommend that book instead.

Valida sintesi del percorso del personaggio con qualche riflessione interessante.Mi aspettavo più “profondità” ma va bene anche così se serve per avere un’idea del personaggio e dei suoi metodi.