Jeff Bezos didn't invent online shopping, but he almost single-handedly turned it into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. His Amazon.com began as a bookstore in 1994, and quickly expanded into dozens of product categories, forcing the world's biggest retailers to rethink their business models, and ultimately changing the way people shop.
But Amazon.com isn't just an internet success story. It's the standard by which all web businesses are now judged -- if not by their shareholders, then by their customers. Amazon set a high bar for reliability and customer service, and also introduced a wide range of online retail conventions -- from user reviews and one-click shopping to the tab interface and shopping cart icon -- so commonplace we no longer think of them as once having been innovations.
When the Internet bubble burst, Amazon.com took a hit with the other e-commerce pioneers, but the fundamentally sound company hung tough. It now sells more than $10 billion a year of goods, profitably, and its technology will influence the changes to business and media that will come next. Amazon recently released Kindle, a wireless digital reading device, giving the term "page turning" a completely new definition. Bezos, meanwhile, is one of the few early Web CEOs who still run the companies they founded. Outside of his work with Amazon, he recently founded Blue Origin, a space-flight startup.
“If the Internet was the new rock and roll, Jeff Bezos…was its Elvis … [Today he’s] the ultimate dotcom survivor.” — BBCNews.com
A round-up of what’s interesting on the interwebs this week: Gary Shteyngart tries Google Glass. Hilarity ensues. [The New Yorker] To everyone’s surprise, a malaria vaccine has been 100 percent effective in clinical trials. [Nature] For writers, adopting a second language is more than gaining a new skill set. It’s a rebirth. [The Stone Blog, […]
Continue readingOver the past week, we’ve noticed a lot of fascinating TED-related news items. Here, some highlights. Jeff Bezos, the co-founder of Amazon (watch his TED Talk), made waves on Monday when it was announced that he will buy The Washington Post for $250 million. “The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to […]
Continue readingJeff Bezos: What matters more than talents In this Princeton University graduation address, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes the case that our character is reflected not in the gifts we’re endowed with at birth, but by the choices we make over the course of a lifetime. Watch Jeff Bezos’ talk >>
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