The Everything Store, Brad Stone - Bookclub #44

eldergill (52)in #bookclub • 6 years ago

About the Author

Brad graduated from Columbia University in 1993 and is originally from Cleveland, Ohio. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

He is a senior executive editor for technology at Bloomberg News, where he oversees a team of 50 reporters and editors that cover high-tech companies, startups and internet trends around the world. Over the last few years, as a writer for Bloomberg Businessweek, he’s authored over two dozen cover stories on companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and the Chinese internet juggernauts Didi, Tencent and Baidu. When he’s not attempting to deconstruct the high-tech firms charting our future, he has written about beleaguered domestic airlines, weaponized drone warplanes, the retail giant Costo, and traced the deceptions of an international con-artist and alleged murderer. Brad joined Businessweek from the New York Times, where he had been a reporter since 2006.

A little bit about the book

The everything store is a book about the history of Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos, after graduation he worked on Wall Street, and in 1990 he became the youngest senior vice president at the investment firm D.E. Shaw. Four years later, he quit his lucrative job to open Amazon.com, a virtual bookstore that became one of the internet's biggest success stories. He is also the owner of The Washington Post and Blue Origin.

The book gives you insight into what makes Jeff Bezos tick as a person who has worked his way up in corporate society. Also, it has plenty of business insights that are useful for any aspiring managers and founders but not only that, Brad Stone has done a good job of making it an interesting read by adding some humour every now and then. He delves into the dark side of Amazon and Jeff Bezos are well as glorifying both of them and brings up certain questions like is it necessary to behave in monopolistic dictator-like ways in order to reach the point that Bezos has, and Amazon the size that it has.

These are 'sacrifices' that often have to be made in order to reach a point where you control a huge part of society. This makes me question the character of Jeff Bezos, and the only thing I wish the book spoke more about is what he uses all of his money for, and his philanthropic ventures.