Amazon, Bezos and a Global Empire

Back in 1953, it was reported that Charlie Wilson, then head of General Motors, said that what’s good for General Motors was good for America. While that quote is a bit apocryphal, the idea was real. The notion that the success of any particular business was inextricably tied up with the success of the nation.

Perhaps in the 70’s it might have been said of Exxon. Today it might very well be said about Amazon.

The company has changed the way we shop...not insignificant in a nation where retail accounts for 6% of our GDP and 25% of our employment.

It has changed the way we think about the cloud, privacy, and electronic storage. It’s now changing transportation, and health care.

How did one company become so powerful and successful not just in one area….like GM or Exxon, but in multiple areas. The answer lies in understanding Amazon’s visionary founder Jeff Bezos.

Currently, the richest man in the world, the money should not obscure his vision, his talents and his place in the founder/CEO hall of fame.

Few understand Bezos better than Brad Stone. Bard is the author of Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire 

 My conversation with Brad Stone:

These are the Guys Who Are Changing the World

It’s kind of amazing that we spent a whole Presidential campaign talking about jobs and outsourcing and immigration, when the fact is that all of that is yesterday’s news.

The real impact on future jobs, income and how we conduct our lives is not coming from Mexico or China, but from Silicon Valley and from that 7 oz rectangular piece of glass in your back pocket.

We’ve already watched the disruption of the music business, the travel business and the retail business. Today disrupters like Brian Chesky and Travis Kalanick have disrupted transportation and hospitality in ways no one could have imagined as recently as just eight years ago.

But disruption has a price; for the disrupter, for society and for those that stand in the way by defending the status quo.

When that happens, it’s always a good story. And that's the story that my guest Brad Stone tells in The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World

My conversation with Brad Stone:

The Everything Store

We all know, or have heard about life in Silicon Valley. The perks, the collegiality, the PowerPoint, the team ethos. In fact, perhaps the most successful company to master the Internet is none of those things. It engages in predatory pricing, it is fiercely competitive, it eschews both PowerPoint and perks. Its leader was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 1999 and and yet, is just now 14 years later, reaching the zenith of his power. The company is Amazon and its leader and founder Jeff Bezos. Clearly the company is doing something different and doing it very, very well. Now we have the very best picture of Bezos and Amazon in Brad Stone's fascinating new book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.

My conversation with Brad Stone: