The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

A fun, lively bio of Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos. It kind of styles itself an exposé, but there isn't much to expose: Bezos just seems like a super-driven, super-smart, super-productive dude who's sometimes a screamer and a giant TNG fan (word). This doesn't necessarily make me dislike him (though I prefer non-screaming bosses, of course). In fact, I went into this book feeling all champagne socialist about it - woe the Amazon warehouse workers, woe the independent bookstore, a pox on DRM, etc etc - and the author certainly includes warts and all. But I ended up - gosh - kinda excited about my Kindle again (cuz it is basically my intellectual lifeline when I am in Far Off Lands, and its design - oh, so silky smooth!). Like, as a physical manifestation of TNG-ish futurism. Tech optimism! Nice feelings. Seriously, I could marry my Kindle.

Somebody smartly remarked that the Fear of Bezos derives less from his current activities, than from Amazon positioning itself as a potential monopoly (they basically operate on near-zero profits at the moment). Fair. But I guess he's just hauling us all into the post-dead-tree book world (seriously, people, stop fetishizing the “smell of books” and blah blah), and creating the stage for a Bezos 2.0. Which means structural change (structural unemployment!), which means pain in the short run. But cars and jet planes in the long run!

What else, what else. Oh yeah - the author does a SUPERB job of enriching sometimes dry business case study-feeling moments with fun, human details. Great journalism.

Definite recc.