Amazon.com: One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com (9781591843757): Richard L. Brandt: Books

Review

Management Today:
"One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com."
... does it make Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, the Edison or Bell of today? The answers come in Richard Brandt's enjoyable book, One Click.
... a good story told well. If you want to understand the Bezos phenomenon, this is an easy and efficient way to do it

About the Author

Richard L. Brandt is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about Silicon Valley for more than two decades. He is well known throughout the technology community as a former correspondent for BusinessWeek, where he won a National Magazine Award. He lives in San Francisco. Visit richardbrandt.com

Product Details

Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (October 27, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591843758
ISBN-13: 978-1591843757
Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #16 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Biographies
- #72 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > E-commerce
- #78 in Books > Business & Investing > Biography & History > Company Profiles

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Richard L. Brandt Page

I have over 20 years' experience writing about science, technology and business, currently a freelance journalist and book author. My most recent book is "One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com (Portfolio/Penguin, October 27, 2011.) It's the story of how Jeff Bezos got started, his impact on retailers, and what he's like as an entrepreneur and a manager (tough!) I'm also author of "Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain" (Portfolio/Penguin, 2009) which was released in paperback as "The Google Guys: Inside the Brilliant Minds of Larry Page and Sergey Brin." (Do you know how few people recognize the names "Larry and Sergey" without additional info? We found out.) I'm also co-author of "Capital Instincts: Life as an Entrepreneur, Financier and Athlete" (John Wiley & Sons, 2003.)

Having written two books in which the subjects would not give me interviews (interesting that the founder of a book-selling site does not give interviews for books) and one book in which the subject had too much control over the manuscript, my next book will be one in which I have direct access to the subject AND complete control over the content.

Not that it's impossible to write a biography without the cooperation of the subject -- it just takes a lot of research and interviews with people who know him or her well -- but I want to be able to really dig into the psyche of the subject. I'd like to ask Jeff Bezos, for example, why he never gives interviews any more unless he hits the talk shows with a product to sell, like a movie star hawking his new picture. I'd like to draw Larry and Sergey into a thoughtful discussion of privacy issues, their deep thoughts on the importance of Web search engines with honest results and how they maintain it.

Executives at public companies whose policies create controversy should get out into the world and explain themselves. They shape our society and affect our lives. I mean, come on! I've interviewed Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, scientists and top academics extensively over the years, and I don't do hatchet jobs.

Still, the book of which I'm most proud is "The Google Guys." I spent four years on it, off and on, most often on. One blogger claimed it was a hagiography, but that's just because I refuse to attack Larry and Sergey simply because that's a popular thing to do these days. I stand behind everything in the book. Most of the reviews were terrific.

Before the internet (temporarily) destroyed the business of journalism, I was editor-in-chief and columnist for technology/business magazine Upside from 1995 to 2001. From 1981 to 1995 I was a technology correspondent for Business Week Magazine. My freelance articles have appeared in CNBC.com, L'Express, Science magazine, Technology Review, Science/Business magazine, Stanford magazine and Working Woman. The Wall Street Journal did an excerpt of "One Click."

My awards include a National Magazine Award, Deadline Club Award; Washington Monthly Award; Atlantic Monthly Award; Computer Press Association Award; Acer/Boston Computer Museum Awards; I was a Knight Science and Technology Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991, and a Science Journalism Fellow from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1981. I've been a speaker on programs for BBC, CNN, NPR and industry events.

I studied engineering and journalism at the University of Delaware, received a BA in biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and studied mathematics at Harvey Mudd college.

I live in San Francisco with my wife and daughter, dog and two cats. My hobbies include carpentry, ocean kayaking, scuba diving, gardening and running. I re-roofed my own house.

Customer Reviews

3.3 out of 5 stars

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 65 people found the following review helpful

Overall a good book, but falls short on depth October 31, 2011

By FreeSpirit TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I guess it really depends on how much you already know about Jeff Bezos and the history of Amazon - that will probably determine whether you enjoy the book, IMHO. I knew very little, so I got a good, quick oversight into Jeff Bezos as a businessman, and into Amazon's early days. It discusses his strengths and questions his weaknesses as a business leader quite extensively. The traits that made him successful are probably his acute decision making abilities (why he chose books instead of CDs at first, why Seattle over CA, etc), long-term perspective, and a unique ability to execute decisions to precision.

Both sides of Amazon's book business - customers who want lower prices, and publishers who want to keep authors in business, are discussed at length. Amazon may have been portrayed, willingly or unwillingly, in a poor light here. I think Amazon is doing what is right by their customers and what any business would do in order to keep a competitive edge in the marketplace. It's a free market economy and any company is welcome to step in and help publishers get a higher price if they are able to do so - Amazon is not stopping them. There are two sides to the debate, both sides with their own merits, but I think the author spends more time on Amazon's ruthless negotiations with publication houses.

While there is lengthy discussion about the early days of Amazon, the ongoing battles with publishers, and Blue Origin, not much has been discussed about the current market Amazon is operating in and its projected path forward. Cloud computing, for example, is discussed only fleetingly.

The book reveals nothing new in itself, except maybe the early years of Bezos that I wasn't familiar with. If you're reading about the history of Amazon for the first time or know little about the subject, this book is probably a great starting point because it puts together bits and pieces of information that are fragmented all over the internet. However, the book seems to lack thoughtful analysis or insight into the company that would blow readers away. It's cut and dry from that perspective. Reading it on the Kindle, I didn't keep track of when the book would end, but when I realized that it had ended, I was puzzled, it felt incomplete. Sort of like eating an appetizer and realizing that that is it, there is no main course on the way.

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28 of 35 people found the following review helpful

Not a Bio. Very high level, lightly insightful book October 29, 2011

By A Medlin

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book came recommended along side Isaacson's Steve Jobs. This is NOT, by any means, a biography, or ANYWHERE CLOSE to the level of insight Isaacson puts in to his book. The only reason this book receives 2 stars, and not 1, is that it does not claim to be a bio.

It is, at best, a high level overview of 'stuff' around the growth of Amazon.com. It jumps back and forth, and doesn't provide any in-depth analysis or research. In addition, it seems that the book is based completely on secondary research. It doesn't appear that any more than a handful of people directly participated in any form of primary research for the book, and pretty much all the quotes by Bezos were from the public domain.

If the author was talking about the "rise of Amazon.com", a more 'timeline'-based approach would have been good to have. The book jumps around a fair bit, and really doesn't get into anything in any level of detail.

To sum this book - "Bezos is ambitious. He started with books. He made a loss. The markets crashed. He focused on profits. He got into other areas. He invested in technology. He's a geek. His quarterly earnings are as follows (some basic numbers), he loves space travel." That's pretty much it, IMO. Since I got it from the Kindle Store, I cannot even resell it...

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

Shallow and Lazily Written January 7, 2012

By Michael S. Ellman

Format:Hardcover

I worked at Amazon for several years and have quite a lot of respect for the company and Bezos. This book doesn't do either justice. It's a tiny, large-margin book that has hardly anything you couldn't find by looking over a handful of shallow old Time magazine articles. Only a few people are interviewed, and hardly any information is given about what it's really like being in the company. The first thing I did when I got the book was to look in the index for the names of influential people I knew. Almost none of them was mentioned. Instead, the book quotes a couple early contributors repeatedly and then rehashes well-known stories. Even the quotes from the couple people I mentioned are so lacking in insight that I wonder whether they come from quickly written e-mails responses instead of face-to-face interviews. This reads to me like something rattled off in a week with hardly any research. I want to compare it to 'In the Plex' which is a terrific book about Google. The author of that book spent a huge amount of time in the company, had access to numerous important past and present employees, and gave you a great sense for Google's history and what it's like to work there. 'One Click' is a lazily written book that offers no insights, no new information, and pretty bad writing. I hope someone does a better job with this story someday.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Brief history of Amazon

A brief but interesting introduction into the beginnings of Amazon.com, as well as some of the key battles and product decisions along the way. Read more

Published 2 days ago by Ilya Grigorik

Fun and breezy read

If you're looking for a quick overview on Jeff Bezos and Amazon, this is a good start. If you're looking for depth and deep analysis, skip this one. Read more

Published 1 month ago by William Song

Some interesting background on Amazon and Bezos

I got this book hoping for a deep insight into amazon.com and its founder, Jeff Bezos. The book paints a relatively one-dimensional picture of Mr. Read more

Published 1 month ago by John L. Miller

One Click - Make Another Purchase

This book was not fiction, but I found it as exciting and as fun to read as many of the fictional thrillers that I have read over the past year. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Upstate New York Reader

I enjoyed this book and learned a lot from reading it.

This book is a concise, well-written report of the rise of Amazon.com. The author does a very good job of explaining the underlying reasons for decision that, in real-time,... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Kimberlie Cerrone

Book about the company and not Bezos

I was disappointed by the book. I expected a typical book size, but it was a hardbound book in the paperback style. The fonts were small. Read more

Published 3 months ago by rpv

One Click

I read the book over the course of two days. Before then, I had very little knowledge of Amazon's inception or the man behind it that made it all possible. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Raheem Mills

More Of An Overview With No New Insights

As other reviewers have indicated this book is very shallow with no new insights. For even the casual reader of The Wall Street Journal, any national business magazine, or any... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Ryan E. Duncan

Serviceable book on Bezos' beginnings

I downloaded this book from my local library on to my Kindle. It's well-written, as far as it goes, and does a good job of describing Bezos' starting Amazon, its rise, and where... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Brian Hartman

Just a big Jeff Bezos Love Fest

I got four chapters into this book and then put it down because I got tired of how it is basically just a rah rah Jeff Bezos book. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Marcus McDaniel

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