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52 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Overall a good book, but falls short on depth, October 31, 2011
This review is from: One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com (Hardcover)
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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26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not a Bio. Very high level, lightly insightful book, October 29, 2011
This review is from: One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com (Hardcover)
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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14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Readable Bio, but Short on Analysis, October 29, 2011
This review is from: One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com (Hardcover)
One Click is slightly tricky to review in that, it mostly succeeds in what the author set out to do (if not exactly what the jacket copy promises): delivering a quick, readable bio of businessman/computer wunderkind Jeff Bezos. Certainly the polymathic and influential Bezos is worthy of study. The guy is clearly a brilliant standout in at least two highly competitive arenas: business and computers. But from my vantage point, and I suspect for most readers, that's not enough--especially (ironically in light of the internet information explosion of which Amazon is at the vanguard. That is, basic information such as Amazon's corporate history and product developments are readily available on sites like Wikipedia and by following Wikipedia links. In fairness to the author, he does cover considerably more ground than you can easily pick up online and he does weave the JB story into a well-flowing narrative, so I got value from the book. But he left so many stones unturned, I ended up feeling frustrated. Here's one that quickly and obviously comes to mind: Amazon is dominating the publishing business like no one has since the owner of the first printing press started operations. Obviously, that's a deliberately dramatic statement, but there are serious issues concerning Amazon's dominance of books, the lifeblood of intellectual culture. This is especially true in light of the rise of the Kindle and their new forays into publishing. Amazon has shown it will play hardball with publishers and vendors, though typically very subtly (such as removing "Buy" or "One-Click" purchase options) so as not to come off as a bully to the public. But will their overwhelming dominance allow them to act as outright censors or, more likely, subtle censors that direct customers to buy their books leaving other publishers struggling? Or I've read that they may publish books from prominent authors and not let them be sold on other websites. Bestselling author and lawyer Scott Turow, who is the president of the Author's Guild, has dubbed Amazon the Darth Vader of publishing and says they should be subject to anti-trust legislation [presumably Amazon let me quote Turow and not bury this review?]. I don't know enough about legal issues or monopolies to have an opinion about monopoly legislation, but it's certainly opens interesting questions to explore. But nada. There is no discussion on this topic. This lack of analysis applies pretty much across the board. Brandt doesn't examine whether Bezos's "sprint ahead; profit later" tactics are a viable approach for most businesses or only for those with a genius at the helm with access to lots of capital. I suspect many of Bezos' business strategies are uniquely suited to him, but it would have been nice to explored that issue or at least some similar kind of avenues. The list of unexplored questions could go on for quite a while, but you get the idea.
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