The new issue of Forbes has a glowing article on the internet
companies, including Amazon.com. It acknowledges that the internet
will change the face of commerce more and more rapidly than any
other technology that has come before it.
Here's the Forbes link:
forbes.com
And an excerpt on Amazon/Bezos:
As recently as a year ago no one gave Jeffrey
Bezos and Amazon much of a chance against
Barnes & Noble's cash and brand name.
Internet pundit George Colony of Forrester
Research has the ignominious distinction of
calling the company "Amazon.toast."
Toast, indeed. In the last year Barnes & Noble
Chief Executive Leonard Riggio has thrown
everything he has against Amazon.com, yet
from the fourth quarter of last year to the first
quarter of this year Amazon's revenues shot up
31%, to $87 million. Barnes & Noble's on-line
business eked out a 14% gain, bringing
revenues to a measly $9.4 million.
In the process, Bezos may be redefining
retailing as fundamentally as Sam Walton did
when he opened his first Wal-Mart store in
Rodgers, Ark. in 1962. In three short years
Amazon has become the third-largest
bookseller in the world, selling an estimated
57,000 books every day during the first 90 days
of 1998. To help put that into perspective: It
took Wal-Mart 12 years and 78 stores to hit
$168 million in annual sales. Amazon hit $148
million in its third year, and should hit $460
million in its fourth year-all without opening a
single store.
Now it is branching out into music, and after
that?
Amazon's sales growth mirrors the rapid
increase in the ranks of Internet users. It took
commercial radio 38 years to reach an
audience of 50 million in North America. It took
commercial television 13 years to do the same.
It took the World Wide Web five years, and the
steep adoption curve is continuing.
Bezos and the 12 other guys profiled here have
one thing in common: They didn't wait around
for the Internet to prove itself as a commercial
medium before jumping in with both feet. Each
started his own company, and 10 remain chief
executive. All of the companies are public, have
solid holds on their markets and together have
created $22.7 billion in new wealth-not just for
the founders, but for their employees, their
backers and investors in general.
Bezos' story is well known. Four years ago he
was a hedge fund manager at D.E. Shaw & Co.
Today his company is worth $4.4 billion. Jeff's
share? $1.98 billion.
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