“I’m sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?”
“If that’s our plan, I don’t like our plan.”
“Do I need to go down and get the certificate that says I’m CEO to get you to stop…?”
“Are you lazy or just incompetent?”
“If I hear that idea again, I’m gonna have to kill myself.”
“Why are you ruining my life?”
“This document was clearly written by the B team. Can someone get me the A team document?”
This is a small collection of incredible one-liners delivered from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to fearful Amazon employees over the last 2 decades. Over this same time period, Amazon went from being an online bookseller to one of the most intriguing companies in the world.
And I got to read all about it in The Everything Store – Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.
If you want a book review, you can read several right here on (yep, you guessed it) Amazon.com. You can also purchase the book with one-click of a button (technology that Amazon has patented) and you can read it on a Kindle Fire (like I did). But, you already knew this about the company.
What you didn’t know is that…
- Jeff Bezos, worth approximately 30 BILLION dollars, drives a Honda.
(is it safe to assume all readers driving a similar car are ballers?)
OR
- Jeff Bezos didn’t know his biological dad. And his biological dad, as of 2 years ago, didn’t know his son was one of the most successful men in the world.
OR
- Rabbit sex toys are wedged between a Rosetta Stone Spanish CD and iPad Nanos in Amazon Fulfillment Centers. Stocking dissimilar products next to one another minimizes the possibility of employees selecting the wrong item.
OR
- Companies like Pinterest and Instagram rent space on Amazon’s computers and Netflix relies on Amazon to stream movies to customers.
OR
- One of Jeff Bezos’ passions is getting to outer space (search: Blue Origin). “Books” were also a passion and look what he did with that.
If you’re looking for a great book to read, this one comes highly recommended (and that’s not just my opinion). Forbes and The Washington Post both named The Everything Store the best book of 2013.
But, The Washington Post may be biased as Jeff Bezos owns that, too.
