Amazon.com: Get Big Fast (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The tale of Amazon.com is well known to anyone who follows the stock market, the book business, the Internet explosion--heck, it's hard to imagine not knowing at least a piece of this extraordinary story. But few, it would seem, know the entire story, and it's these gaps that Robert Spector's Amazon.com: Get Big Fast attempts to fill (or at least the information available in early 2000, when the book was published). For example, those who know about Amazon.com's paradigm-shifting influence on the book business may not know it wasn't even the first online book retailer, or the second or the third. (It was preceded by clbooks.com, books.com, and wordsworth.com, the last of which beat Amazon.com to the Internet by almost two years.) Those who've heard quirky stories about Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos--for example, that he built his own desk out of a door, and that his mother bought the desk at an online charity auction in 1999 for $30,100--may not know that he was a studious overachiever from an early age. As a 12-year-old in Houston, he was even profiled in a book on gifted education in Texas. And those who marvel at the company's multibillion-dollar stock valuation may not know that it was broke and nearly out of business in the summer of '95.

Put it all together and you have a book that should be interesting to many different readers. As a pure business read, it certainly provides a blow-by-blow account of an important company's critical decisions. And anyone looking for a brief history of e-commerce will see how one idea--Bezos's realization in 1994 that Web usage was growing 2,300 percent a year--set the entire online retailing phenomenon in motion. If nothing else, that last fact should propel parents to pay very careful attention to their kids' math scores. Had Bezos, a summa cum laude Princeton grad in computer science, not realized the implications of exponential growth ... well, let's just say you wouldn't be reading this review right now. --Lou Schuler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos declined to be interviewed for this book, relates Spector, a journalist who has written for USA Today and UPI. But Bezos had nothing to fear. Spector has taken an extremely benign look at the so-called e-commerce success story, beginning with Bezos's career as an investment banker, passing through Amazon.com's early days in a dingy warehouse, the search for investor dollars, the company's transformation from a virtual to a physical entity, skirmishes in the marketplaces and the courts and, finally, the improbable expansion into other products (besides books) and countries. Sometimes chronological, sometimes topical, this comprehensive overview is filled with interesting trivia (e.g., the company initially protected itself against credit card theft by walking a floppy disk from one PC to another instead of transmitting information over the Net). Unfortunately, Spector writes with a glibness that leaves the reader wondering exactly what he means: "Setting about to run a corporate culture from the ground up, Bezos focused on hiring the absolute best people he could find." In other cases, he starts down a promising road but never brings us to the end; for example, he writes that "in reality, in the quest to get big fast, the seemingly mild-mannered Bezos is a fierce, take-no-prisoners competitor," and proceeds to fuzzily document how Amazon gets closer to the consumer. Those looking for a quick primer on the growth of one of the world's most famous dot-coms will find this useful. Readers looking for a journalistically penetrating account, readers will be better served by the business press. (Apr)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (January 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066620422
• ISBN-13: 978-0066620428
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #318,698 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good background reading but not enough on the detail, April 6, 2000

By	P H Fisher "pfisher47" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: amazon.com - Get Big Fast : Inside the Revolutionary Business Model That Changed the World (Hardcover)

This book is a good introduction to Amazon and some of the basic philosophy behind the company. For those interested in establishing an e-commerce company it makes helpful reading, especially if our current knowledge of the technology is limited. Unfortunately the author did not interview Jeff Bezos and therefore much of the information was already in the public domain.

My criticism of the book is two fold. First there appears to be little or no information on the problems of establishing the technology and learning how to offer a customer centric service. As a long time customer of Amazon I for one have seen dramatic improvements in the customer service model; for instance allowing customers to consolidate orders and requesting part vs. full shipment are changes made after the first few years of trading. I think that a detailed analysis of these kinds of issues would have been really helpful.

Second the author appears to accept the business model that Amazon have developed - huge losses aimed at long-term market position without question. I would have liked a little bit more on the view expressed by Barnes and Noble that they don't want to win a hollow victory - owing the market and the losses.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fair, accurate portrayal of early years and excitement, April 5, 2000

By	Glenn Fleishman (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: amazon.com - Get Big Fast : Inside the Revolutionary Business Model That Changed the World (Hardcover)

Robert Spector has written a very fair and interesting account of how Jeff Bezos recruited and motivated a crack team of enormously talented, hardworking individuals into working vast amounts of time in creating something really new that benefitted consumers and transformed the book industry - and helped create the new economy. Spector's book is not money or number focused, which is a relief. There's been an infinite amount of that kind of reporting. His book is about the culture and the thrill of reinventing the world. The outcome of this new economy is still up in the air. But there's no doubt that Amazon.com started the revolution and contains to be the flag bearer for it. (A disclaimer: I was an early and brief - and happy - employee at Amazon.com, and I can vouch for Spector having captured the mood and excitement of the place during my time there.)

94 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't look at the other side, May 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: amazon.com - Get Big Fast : Inside the Revolutionary Business Model That Changed the World (Hardcover)

The author does a good job of capturing the excitement and relevant facts to the internet revolution. Yet, he fails to take into account the relevant facts such as: AMZN has yet to make any money and may never make any money, Bezos is not the first and certainly not the last to have a huge stake in this business model, and finally the author does not look at the bleak future AMZN now faces. I have actually tried to submit a review for this book five times now (the preceding ones) included a detailed description as to why Amazon.com cannot ever make money and why Bezos is no genius (the software is the real genius of Amazon.com)--I will be very surprised if this review is posted......