The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon [Kindle Edition]

Brad Stone

Brad Stone (Author)

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Book Description

"An immersive play-by-play of the company's ascent.... It's hard to imagine a better retelling of the Amazon origin story." -- Laura Bennett, New Republic

Amazon.com's visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now.

Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, and his book is the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. The Everything Store is the book that the business world can't stop talking about, the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A masterclass in deeply researched investigative financial journalism ... riveting" -- Tim Waterstone The Times "Stone has done a remarkable job in a way that Bezos would appreciate - by working very hard." -- John Gapper Financial Times "Engrossing... Stone's long tenure covering both Bezos and Amazon... gives his retelling a sureness that keeps the story moving swiftly" New York Times "The definitive biography of the company that changed the way we shop and read... A masterclass in investigative journalism" Mail on Sunday "Scrupulously researched... If only all business books were as readable as this one" -- Ian King The Times Books of the Year "I highly recommend this book. Amazon is one of the most important companies in the 21st-century economy, and anyone whose business has been or will be touched by Amazon should be sure to read it." -- Tim O'Reilly "Jeff Bezos is one of the most visionary, focused, and tenacious innovators of our era, and like Steve Jobs he transforms and invents industries. Brad Stone captures his passion and brilliance in this well-reported and compelling narrative." -- Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs: the Exclusive Biography "The meticulously reported book has plenty of gems for anyone who cares about Amazon, Jeff Bezos, entrepreneurship, leadership just the lunacy it took to build a company in less than two decades that now employs almost 90,000 people and sold $61 billion worth of, well, almost everything last year." Washington Post "The Everything Store is a revelatory read for everyone - those selling and those sold to - who wants to understand the dynamics of the new digital economy. If you've ever one-clicked a purchase, you must read this book." -- Steven Levy, author of Hackers and In the Plex "Stone's tale of the birth, near-death, and impressive revival of an iconic American company is well worth your time." -- Matthew Yglesias Slate

About the Author

Brad Stone is an American journalist and writer. Before writing for Bloomberg Businessweek, he was a technology correspondent for the New York Times. He has also worked at Newsweek. He lives in San Francisco.

Product Details

• File Size: 6291 KB
• Print Length: 361 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0316219266
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (October 15, 2013)
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00BWQW73E
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray:
  Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,603 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Operations Research
  • #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Organizational Behavior > Organizational Learning
  • #4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Biography & History > Company Histories

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

700 of 736 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I did like this book November 5, 2013

By S. Kaphan

Format:Hardcover

I wasn't really planning on reviewing this book, because I was mentioned in it several times and it didn't seem appropriate. But several other people who were also mentioned in the book have already posted reviews, and in fact, MacKenzie Bezos, in her well known 1-star review, suggested that other "characters" might "step out of books" and "speak for themselves".

I was at Amazon for the first 5 years of its existence, so I also have firsthand experience of those times at the company, and I have been a fairly close observer since I left. I spent considerably more time in the Amazon work environment during those years than MacKenzie Bezos did. By and large I found Mr. Stone's treatment of that which I know firsthand to be accurate -- at least as accurate as it is possible to be at this great a remove, and with no contemporaneous documentation of the early chaotic days or access to certain of the principals. Relying on people's memories of nearly twenty-year-old events is of necessity somewhat perilous. Of course there are a few minor errors here and there, but I don't have firsthand knowledge of important mistakes much less anything that appears to be intentionally misleading. But there are a few minor glitches. In my case, I can testify that I did not, in fact, have a bushy beard at age 17 when I worked at the Whole Earth Truck Store & Catalog in Menlo Park. It was a publisher and seller of books and other things, not a lending library. It was in a storefront and was no longer a mobile service operating out of a truck by the time I worked there (p. 32). But I do not think this is a reason to disregard the entire book; it's just some not terribly relevant detail the author got a bit wrong in a way that doesn't change the story materially. MacKenzie listed one error, which didn't seem especially awful or material to me, and then referred only vaguely to "way too many inaccuracies". Without a more explicit list of mistakes it is hard to know what to make of that. Breaking news: a new 372 page book has some errors!

Since Mr. Stone did not have access to Jeff Bezos for this book, but had to rely on previous interviews and the accounts of others, it would be surprising if there weren't a few mistakes regarding his thought processes. As part of my agreement to be interviewed for this book, I was allowed to read a draft of the chapter which covered the time I was there, and I offered a number of corrections, some of which Mr. Stone was able to incorporate. To the extent I am quoted, my quotes are, while not complete, fair and in context. I don't love or agree with everything that Mr. Stone wrote about me -- especially his broader conclusions regarding the circumstances of my departure from the company -- but I do think it was fair and reasonable. I am aware of at least one other interviewee who was also given a chance to check over the chapter in which his story was discussed. I obviously can't know this, but I suspect that if Mr. Stone had been granted access to Jeff Bezos, that he would have extended a similar courtesy. I have a pretty high degree of confidence that Mr. Stone made a significant effort, and did what was in his power, to make the book accurate.

The irony is, of course, that by reviewing the book as MacKenzie Bezos did, she has brought an immense amount more attention to it -- there are dozens of articles referring to her review via Google News this morning -- and its sales rank has shot up considerably. The book is not a fawning hagiography, but it is also hardly a completely negative account either. It describes not only Amazon's ultra-hardball business practices, but the better aspects of their services and products as well. To the extent of my knowledge it is a pretty realistic account, though necessarily incomplete. Of course Mr. Stone has his own point of view, and of course he does what nearly all biographers do, which is to impute thoughts and emotions to the people he writes about. It would be mighty dull reading without that, but I think readers are generally smart enough to understand that when they read biographies, especially unauthorized biographies, the author has to recreate some kind of persona to make the subject appear life-like. That doesn't make it fiction. This was written as a business book for a popular audience anyway, not as an academic treatise, so expecting every "Bezos thought..." to be footnoted, or couched in hypothetical language, is not realistic.

Especially in comparison to the sad collection of awful books that have been written on this subject, this one is much more detailed, more interesting, and a lot more deeply reported. Sure, there is plenty more that could be written about, and maybe someday somebody will. If and when that happens, I can only hope it is also "unauthorized" and not sanitized by a corporate PR department, and that some real investigative journalism is done, like Mr. Stone did here. Read more ›

551 of 629 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing stories, incomplete and unbalanced history October 30, 2013

By Rick

Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

Brad Stone did a lot of research and the result is a glimpse into the history of one of the world's most exciting companies. More than 300 interviews with current and past employees -- myself included -- netted an intriguing collection of stories. More significantly, his book communicates an important set of business principles and a taste of the difficult decisions Jeff Bezos made along the way.

I'm currently retired, but spent 10 years working alongside Jeff and the incredible team he assembled, so I have first-hand knowledge of much of the period the book covers. While I found it rather interesting, lots of stories are missing or just inaccurate. Brad painted a one-dimensional picture of Jeff as a ruthless capitalist. He completely missed his warmth, his humor, and his empathy -- all qualities abundantly present in the man.

One of my favorite things about Jeff is his laugh. But Brad's quote from me implies exactly the opposite: "You can't misunderstand it," says Rick Dalzell, Amazon's former chief information officer, who says Bezos often wields his laugh when others fail to meet his lofty standards. "It's disarming and punishing. He's punishing you." Nothing could be farther from the truth. In actuality, Jeff's laugh is spontaneous, sincere, warm and endearing. It diffuses stressful situations. Clearly, Brad misunderstood me.

The story of Jeff and Amazon is a fascinating one and deserves to be told in all its complexity. Even with the details this book contains, there's a whole lot more that's been left out, making this an incomplete and somewhat unbalanced telling of Jeff's and Amazon's story.

3,467 of 4,063 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to like this book November 4, 2013

By MacKenzie Bezos

Format:Hardcover|Verified Purchase

In the first chapter, the book sets the stage for Bezos’s decision to leave his job and build an Internet bookstore. “At the time Bezos was thinking about what to do next, he had recently finished the novel Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro, about a butler who wistfully recalls his personal and professional choices during a career in service in wartime Great Britain. So looking back on life’s important junctures was on Bezos’s mind when he came up with what he calls ‘the regret-minimization framework’ to decide the next step to take at this juncture in his career.” It’s a good beginning, and it weaves in nicely with what’s to come. But it’s not true. Jeff didn’t read Remains of the Day until a year after he started Amazon.

If this were an isolated example, it might not matter, but it’s not. Everywhere I can fact check from personal knowledge, I find way too many inaccuracies, and unfortunately that casts doubt over every episode in the book. Like two other reviewers here, Jonathan Leblang and Rick Dalzell, I have firsthand knowledge of many of the events. I worked for Jeff at D. E. Shaw, I was there when he wrote the business plan, and I worked with him and many others represented in the converted garage, the basement warehouse closet, the barbecue-scented offices, the Christmas-rush distribution centers, and the door-desk filled conference rooms in the early years of Amazon’s history. Jeff and I have been married for 20 years.

While numerous factual inaccuracies are certainly troubling in a book being promoted to readers as a meticulously researched definitive history, they are not the biggest problem here. The book is also full of techniques which stretch the boundaries of non-fiction, and the result is a lopsided and misleading portrait of the people and culture at Amazon. An author writing about any large organization will encounter people who recall moments of tension out of tens of thousands of hours of meetings and characterize them in their own way, and including those is legitimate. But I would caution readers to take note of the weak rhetorical devices used to make it sound like these quotes reflect daily life at Amazon or the majority viewpoint about working there.

For example, when the author does include people whose accounts of a supportive and inspiring culture contradict his thesis, he refers to them dismissively throughout the book as robots. In an archive of the thousands of thank you messages written to Jeff over the years, a small sampling includes “I just wanted to thank you for giving my husband the opportunity to work for your company so many years ago and let you know that he always spoke kindly and enthusiastically of the distribution center, the people and you.” “Having finished my shift I thought I would send you a short email to say thank you. There is a fantastic team based here and we have super support. Our mentors are true Amazon angels providing guidance and showing great patience.” “I cried as I read the Career Choice announcement on Amazon today. What Amazon is doing to help its employees is affecting lives in the most meaningful way I can think of. It restores my faith in humanity.” It seems like unbalanced reporting to avoid including the point of view of more people like these (and to use narrative tricks to discredit those who are included), given how plentiful they are.

In light of the focus in many of the reviews here and elsewhere on what the book “reveals” about Jeff’s motives, I will also point out that the passage about what was on his mind when he decided to start Amazon is far from the only place where the book passes off speculation about his thoughts and intentions as fact. “Bezos felt…” “Bezos believed….” “Bezos wanted….” “Bezos fixated…” “Bezos worried….” “Bezos was frustrated…” “Bezos was consumed…” “In the circuitry of Bezos’s brain, something flipped…” When reading phrases like these, which are used in the book routinely, readers should remember that Jeff was never interviewed for this book, and should also take note of how seldom these guesses about his feelings and motives are marked with a footnote indicating there is any other source to substantiate them.

One of the biggest challenges in non-fiction writing is the risk that a truthfully balanced narration of the facts will be boring, and this presents an author with some difficult choices. It may be that another telling of the Amazon story—for example, that people at Amazon have no secret agenda they’ve been able to keep hidden for 19 years, really do believe in the mission they keep repeating, and are working hard and of their own free will to realize it —would strike readers as less exciting than the version offered here. I sympathize with this challenge. But when an author plans to market a book as non-fiction, he is obliged to find a suspenseful story arc that doesn’t rely on mischaracterizing or avoiding important parts of the truth. I am grateful this is the era of the Internet, when characters in non-fiction can step out of books, as Jonathan Leblang and Rick Dalzell have done, and speak for themselves. Ideally, authors are careful to ensure people know whether what they are reading is history or an entertaining fictionalization. Hollywood often uses a more honest label: “a story based on true events.” If authors won’t admit they’ve crossed this important line, their characters can do it for them. Read more ›