HSB Presents: Brad Stone
Brad Stone is a senior writer for Bloomberg Businessweek and the author of the newly released book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, which provides a definitive account of the e-commerce giant. (October 1, 2013)
Amazon.com made its mark sending new books quickly in nice, smile-embossed boxes. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the world's store, where everything is available to everyone, usually in 24 hours. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and drive and revolutionized retail the way Ford revolutionized manufacturing.
Stone has been given unprecedented access to Amazon employees, both current and former, to give readers the first fly-on-the-wall narrative account of the world's largest online retailer. In a club of tech business innovators that includes Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, Bezos stands out for his hyper-competitive business strategies, which are leading Amazon to current ventures from hardware like e-readers and tablet PCs, web hosting for some of the world's most valuable companies, book publishing, and even a top secret space program.
Given his research and direct contact with Amazon insiders, Stone is able to offer keen insights into the history and remarkable growth of a company widely regarded as uniquely innovative, disruptive and often polarizing. He delves into how it has revolutionized the retail industry in ways that are arguably great for its customers and destructive to rivals and even local communities.