The Time article must've been the gun powder,
but only if it hit the stands at 3PM ET. :) Here's an excerpt
with the main part of the article centering on Amazon, and
Bezos. The full article is worth the read, it gives a sort
of non-technical feel for how the Internet is perceived by
the public. I'm sure you'll find both this article and the
Wash. Post piece in the next version of the AMZN investor kit. :)
[ source: pathfinder.com ]
Few businesses illustrate this sort of
generational corporate conflict better than the
book-selling industry. If you want a snapshot of
the e-economy, 1998, you could do worse than
Jeff Bezos, the founder of bookseller
Amazon.com. One day last week, as his stock
price rose and fell with typical volatility, he
stalked through his shuttered Seattle office, on a
phone call, staring at his wristwatch, pacing,
talking, thinking, plotting, scheming, then
glancing at the watch again. Like the Net
Economy, Bezos is all about motion.
His conversion to the Web came in 1995, when
he read a report that projected annual Web
growth at 2,300%. First he checked that he'd
read the figure correctly. Then he quit his job as
a hedge-fund manager in New York City, packed
his bags and drove out to Seattle. Or, rather, his
wife drove; Bezos was busy pecking out a
business plan on his laptop.
The idea behind Amazon.com was devilishly
simple: type in a book's title, the author's name
or even just a general subject, and the site will
present you with a list of every matching book in
its database. Choose your title, type in your
address and credit-card number, and service
reps at Amazon.com's Seattle warehouse will find
your order and mail it to you, usually within one
or two days, and often at a hefty discount. Three
years after launch, Amazon.com has 2.25 million
worldwide customers, and sales that may reach
$350 million this year.
None of this, you can imagine, made bookstore
chains very happy. But they held back on the
Net. For years the buzz in the book industry was
all about building new megastores, where
shoppers could sip mochaccinos and chew over
big ideas while they sat on comfortable couches.
And in the two years that Barnes & Noble and
Borders were focusing on what kinds of
vanilla-sugar cubes to put in their coffee bars,
Bezos was building an empire. B&N has tried to
catch up, forging close ties with the gigantic
online service America Online and suing
Amazon.com over its use of the tag line "Earth's
Biggest Bookstore." |
