Book Notices | The Everything Store by Brad Stone

Brad Stone, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Amazon   I'm a big fan of Amazon and so was eager to read this book. Still, I'm a bit surprised at how interesting I found it. I don't think I could as happily read about the history of any other company--with the possible exception of Twitter. Stone writes about Bezos' personal life to an extent: his work history pre-Amazon, and there's a bit about his life growing up and his estranged biological father. But mostly the book is about the meteoric rise of Amazon and about Bezos as CEO--he's volatile, merciless, almost, in pursuit of his goals, far-sighted, and absolutely brilliant. It's a fascinating story. I suppose it's odd, but as a long-time customer of Bezos'--I placed my first order with Amazon on October 25th, 1997--I almost feel I have a personal stake in his company, devotion I don't feel toward any other business, including Apple. But then, it's not only the retail business: it's affiliate links and Prime delivery and my beloved Kindle Paperwhite and video streaming and Vine and Mechanical Turk. Amazon is a huge part of my life, and it directly affects me literally every day. Anyway, that would explain my interest in the subject matter of Stone's book. As for the book itself, the author has done a good job. The hard work he surely put into researching the topic hasn't bogged the story down (although there are a lot of employee names thrown around that one tends to forget). It's highly readable, and really it's a book that had to be written.