WEBVTT - The Story of Amazon.com: Part 1 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:05.520 Get in touch with technology with pluck stuff from how 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:14.400 Stuff Looks dot Com. Haythen everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.640 I am Jonathan Strickland, one of the two hosts, and 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.920 I am Lauren voc Obamb the other of the two hosts. Logically, 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.880 there we go today. We thought we would start talking 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.680 about a particularly important company as far as the web 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.160 and technology are concerned. It's kind of big. You may 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.720 have heard of it. Yeah, it's called Amazon. Um big, 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.320 big company and also one of the companies that that 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:42.520 famously weathered the great storm of the dot com crash. Yeah. Yeah, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.239 because they started up way before that thing happened, like 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.479 five entire years. And yeah, but you know what, not 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.400 a lot of companies that were specifically web based can 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.720 make the claim that they started pre dot com and 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.520 made it through couple did Google did another thing that 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.360 you may have heard of? Yeah, So so anyway, Amazon 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.600 has become really a powerhouse. But to to understand where 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:08.360 it is now, it's it's good to look at at 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:11.480 how it started. And really Amazon is kind of one 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.280 of those companies, even though even though I would say 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.479 the founder is not necessarily as well known as someone 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.480 like Steve Jobs was right, Sure, he's not that kind 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.520 of level of rock star, but nonetheless his personality has 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.480 really driven the way that the company has developed end end. Yeah, 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.720 I mean without him, without his drive and without his 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.840 his vision. Uh and frankly, without the mistakes he's made, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.280 Amazon would not be what it is. And we're talking, 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:40.480 of course about Jeffrey Preston Bezos. Preston's middle name. That's 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.520 a terrific middle name. Yes, makes me think of Princeton, 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.360 which he also went to. But that's spoiler alert. But yeah, 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.160 you need to know a little bit about him to understand, uh, 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.320 you know, where Amazon is coming from and sort of 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:55.400 the goals of the company and where it might be 0:01:55.480 --> 0:02:00.120 going to. So to cast back the clock to to 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.360 the mid sixties, Uh, you need to understand a little 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.920 bit about his family background. So his mother, it was 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:16.280 Jacqueline Guys Jorgenson Jensen U. She had married, briefly a 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.480 man by the name of Ted Jorgenson. They were married 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:21.760 less than a year and she clearly wanted to keep 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.040 that name. Well, she lost she lost Jorgenson. Uh no, 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.320 but that was that was her name at the time. 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.240 But then she she became Jacqueline Guys again. And I 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.679 assume I'm pronouncing that correctly. It's G I S E. 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:36.840 So feel free to write us in and say how 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.720 wrong Jonathan is. And I love those emails. Yes, now 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.440 now she gets them, so um yeah, Jacqueline guys married 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.560 to Ted Jorgenson. Uh, and she gets pregnant and then 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.520 uh they divorce. Well, there was a fellow by the 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:56.120 name of Miguel Bezos, better known as Mike, and he 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.280 grew up in Cuba, but he took part in a 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.919 there was actually a program that sort of helped people 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:09.359 who were trying to escape Castro's regime to get into 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.640 the United States, and he was It was a program 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.160 aimed at at younger people. He was one of these people. 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.560 So he came over the United States as a young teenager, 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.880 like he was fifteen years old, doesn't speak English. He 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:27.639 goes to live in a small community where he's with 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:33.079 I think fifteen other people from and he learns English 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.520 and he starts he goes to school and uh and 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:40.280 really applies himself and eventually he goes to attend school 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.720 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and starts to work in the 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.800 bank of New Mexico. And that's where he meets Jackie 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:51.600 guys and uh, Miguel and Jackie ended up falling in 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:56.960 love and they ended up getting married. And so then 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:02.600 Miguel applied for and became the adopted father of Jeff Bezos. 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.440 He Jeff took the name of his of his uh 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:11.800 adopted dad. And in all interviews, Jeff talks about Mike 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.120 as being his father. He says that, you know, he 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.000 may not be his biological father, but he's his dad 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.360 and uh and specifically, in several interviews, they all cited 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:24.760 the same statement where he said, the only time I 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.479 ever think about him not being my biological father is 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.760 when I have to fill out a form, which is 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:31.800 you know, it's just a It says a lot about 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:36.320 who who Mike Bezos is really and so uh he 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:38.880 grew up with you know, his his parents were very 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.800 hard working, they believed very much in scholarship and UH, 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.880 and so he really started to apply himself. His father, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:51.920 Mike became a petroleum engineer for Exxon. UH. After he 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.440 graduated college, and Jeff ended up really getting interested in 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:01.600 science and electronics and engineering and particularly in space. That 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.200 will come into play a little bit later. But he 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:10.560 spent childhood summers working on his grandfather's ranch in Cotula, Texas. 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.920 And everyone in Catula who knows that I just mispronounced 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.960 the name of your town. I apologize their their places 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:20.680 in Texas that I attempt to say the name of 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.360 and I always mangle it many many places in America. Honestly, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.240 there's really words. Words are hard. It's particularly tough in 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:31.120 places like Georgia and Texas where you have the regional 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.760 pronunciation of a place that is not the same as 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:38.000 the pronunciation of some other words. Pronunciation. Yeah, I think 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:42.440 we've talked before on the show about Ponsta Leone Street 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.520 around here. Yeah, great street, but yeah, you do not 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.120 call it Poste Leone. It's constantly in um Yeah, same 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.160 sort of thing. So I know I mispronounced that. I 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:56.120 apologize to to Texas. I do apologize anyway. His grandfather, 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:01.840 his grandfather's name was Lawrence Preston Pop guys pop in 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.160 a quotation box there so known as pop, and he 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.000 was he was a bit of a a go getter, uh, 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.520 someone who really kind of applied himself. He had worked 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:17.080 for DARPAH. He had helped develop space and missile defense technology. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:21.240 Congress eventually appointed him as the manager of the Atomic 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.240 Energy Commissions Albuquerque Operations office, and he oversaw twit the 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:29.600 six thousand employees. Oh my goodness, gracious, so so so 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.080 so people in in Jeff's life had this kind of 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.880 drive and it definitely rubbed off on him. Yeah, and 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:40.160 his grandfather apparently just doated upon him. And uh that 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.200 he really encouraged Jeff in his love of things like 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.000 electronics and technology. Not a big surprise for someone who's 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:52.520 technically a rocket scientist type. Maybe not technically a rocket scientist, 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.719 but works field. Sometimes nerds like to talk about the 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.560 nerd things that they're excited about. No, that's not a 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.440 mark of a nerd. A passion for a subject and 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.360 to talk endlessly about it. I don't know anything about anyway. 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.560 Let me get on with Amazon. So Obasos his childhood 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.280 really he um, he started to build kits to help 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.720 him build electronics and various gadgets. He actually there was 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:21.040 a great story about how, uh he saw this toy 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.640 that was a mechanical electronic toy that was a box 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:27.680 that had mirrors in it, and it was called an 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:29.840 infinity cube and you would press a button and the 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:31.640 mirrors would align in such a way to give that 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:36.560 illusion of infinite. But the toy was twenty dollars. This 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.600 was in the mid seventies. Yeah, yeah, this would be yeah, yeah, right, 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.480 early seventies. Actually, um, maybe even no, it would have 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:46.000 to be early seventies. There's no way. It was when 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.280 he was four. But his his mother told him that 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.720 twenty dollars was too much to spend for a toy, 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:54.960 and he thought, oh, well, you know, that makes sense, 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.840 and he looked at around and he started to find parts, 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.520 and he figured out that buying all the parts would 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:02.120 be cheaper than buying the toys. So he bought the 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.920 parts and built one himself. Oh just yeah, like you do. 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:06.600 I did that all the time when I was a child, 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.720 and I just made my own toys where I made 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:13.200 tinker toys by bashing sticks together until they formed a pile. Anyway, 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.920 Bezos ended up being the the subject of part of 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.960 a book. The book was called turning on Bright Minds 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.480 of parent Looks at Gifted Education in Texas and uh 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.200 and it it kind of it talked about him, although 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:32.720 it changed his name for legal purposes exactly. Yeah, yeah, 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.640 as in minor as an underage, not as in let's 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.760 go get some coal out of that part of the ground. Um. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.480 He he was featured in this book. What was funny 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.000 was that they talked to other teachers who who had 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:50.800 taught Bezos, and they had said that he was very intelligent, 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.240 he did very well in school, but he was not 0:08:54.440 --> 0:09:00.240 particularly particularly gifted in leadership, which is wow. That got 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.120 to be He obviously developed those skills later on in 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:08.480 somewhere else. Yeah, apparently so well. Like I said, he 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.320 was fascinated by space in the space industry, and he 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.320 wanted very early on to kind of look into creating 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.000 sort of a privatized approach to the space industry because 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.160 having having it just in government hands meant that you 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:24.400 had a pretty narrow set of parameters you could work 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.120 within because you had to do everything according to government 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:31.839 approval and uh. And he also really felt that it 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.720 was important to develop lands in the event that Earth 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:41.439 could become the victim of some sort of interspatial collision, 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.440 so you know, like like a meteor media coming or 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:50.080 asteroid or comment or you know, death star. Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.280 he sat there and said, you know, we it doesn't 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:53.880 make sense for us to have all our eggs on 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.320 the Earth basket, we should spread our eggs around. That's 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.040 the other little planet bast that came out differently than 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.640 awkward in my head. But anyway, Yes, that's exactly what 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.760 he was thinking, was that we need to diversify. Yeah, 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.040 and and and the idea of a non government space 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:11.720 program at the time, I mean, if this was still 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.000 like like that was that was relatively radical. I mean, 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.160 obviously people talk about it all the time now that 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.920 the space Shuttle program has been shut down. But yeah, no, 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.480 this was this was pretty pretty crazy stuff, and he 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.040 was very much interested in it. Uh and and that 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.600 was an interest that didn't go away from with childhood. Well, 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:31.280 and like I said, we'll talk a little bit more 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:36.559 about that, probably in part two of our Amazon Focus, 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:38.520 because we're expecting that we're going to talk a lot 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.920 about this one. Yeah, it's a it's it's a company 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.080 that's not only large and not only interesting in its history, 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.240 but it does a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:50.280 It does not just chippy books, Nope, not anymore so. Anyway, 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.280 he then ended up going into high school. He co 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:59.680 founded a student summer camp called Dream Institute. And Dream 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:05.360 wasn't acronym that standard for directed reasoning methods, and I love, love, 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:10.119 love this because not only did they stress science curricula, 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:15.440 but also literature. Stranger in a Strange Land was required reading, 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.000 so was Doune, so was Lord of the Rings. So 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.760 you sit there and you think, and and there were other, uh, 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.040 actual books that that people would say fit in the 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.319 world of literature. I know some people would argue that 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.559 Dune and Lord of the Rings don't. I am not 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:31.719 one of those people. I think Dune and Lord of 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.960 the Rings have a real place in literature. But I 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:36.600 know some people look down in it because it's science 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.600 fiction and science fiction and but yeah, yeah, that's I've 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.560 I certainly had a poetry teacher in college who would 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.959 argue with you, but you're right. No, I had a 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.679 creative writing teacher who told me that in creative writing, 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.920 he actually came up to me and said, now, Jonathan, 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.280 I want you to write real fiction because my father 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.680 is a science fiction author. You know, my dad writes 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:57.600 science fiction. So oh, I mean at the same time, 0:11:57.640 --> 0:11:59.000 you know, I had I had that one professor who 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:00.520 was very down on it. But I also had another 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.840 professor who assigned us those sort of books for required readings. 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.480 In both you know, at a medieval literature professor who 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:11.480 would quote Tolkien and was probably the probably probably the 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:15.120 biggest geek in the class. And boy he was great anyway, 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.719 all of that aside. He designed this curriculum along with 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.960 another student, and it was for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.319 So this is when he's when he's getting into like 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.360 he's looking into college at this point forming this and 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.040 and uh it was I think six hundred dollars to 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.960 get in, and I think they had fifteen students apply, 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.840 two of them being Bezos's siblings, but other than that, um, 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.400 you had other kids in there too, And it was 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:45.520 just it was interesting that it was taking this approach, 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.880 and they really stressed the fact that it was a 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.839 new approach that also incorporated classic learning material. So it 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.560 wasn't just you know, this space age form of learning. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.760 They said, no, the classics are important too, And uh, 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.640 I found that particularly fascinating. It reminds me very much 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:04.280 of a program I went to when I was in 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.080 high school called the Governor's Honors Program that was very 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:11.760 much stressing about its stressed, uh, various forms of learning 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.400 in a very concentrated way. But you were with a 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.520 whole bunch of other people who are really really jazzed 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.000 about that. So it made learning entire renaissance kind of 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.920 concept of learning that says that both science and also 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.839 arts are kind of important. Yeah, so that was that 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.520 was an interesting approach. He then when he graduated high 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.000 school and then went to Princeton, uh, and his in 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.280 his senior year, Uh, he received well. Before I get 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.240 to his senior year, he actually at first thought about 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.080 majoring in theoretical physics right right, you were telling me 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.360 about this, but decided that that actually the other kids 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.280 in theoretical physics were better at theoretical physics than he was. Yeah, 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:50.760 and he didn't like that, and he didn't like that, 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.240 and it wasn't so it wasn't so much that he 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.560 didn't like that there were people who were better at 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.600 it than he was, sure, but he was just he 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.720 just realized that that was not his niche Yeah, exactly. 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.120 He was like, there are people whose brains are wired 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.640 in a different way than my brain is wired, and 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.920 these people are grasping these concepts easily. They are doing 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.960 really well in these classes. I'm struggling. Uh, it's a 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:15.920 lot more work for me. Maybe there's something else I 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.480 should look into, and so instead he went into computer 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.720 science instead of theoretical physics. By the way, both of 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.360 those fields way more complicated than anything I ever did 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.320 in college. So you know, right for for the record 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.000 that the two of us English majors, you were I was, 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.400 I was English. Yeah, yeah, the English major I wasn't. 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.200 Actually I wasn't English, and then converted into Southern United States. No, 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.960 that wasn't me. Uh. I was always anyway, very similar, y'all. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.240 He uh then joined well he in his senior year, 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.280 he was invited to join various companies. Uh. He received 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.800 job offers from Intel, little company, there Bell Labs, another one, 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:01.720 Anderson Consulting. But he ended up instead accepting an offer 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.280 to join a startup company called fightel f I T 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.760 E L. And this was a company that was trying 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:14.160 to build a telecommunications network that was for trading companies 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.120 like like uh, like finance organizations, and the whole purpose 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:23.160 was just to settle cross border equity transitions. Exciting stuff. 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.640 It sounds thrilling, but it meant building a network. And 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.240 this is we're talking about the same time when when 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:34.200 our pannett is going strong, the Internet is is starting 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.080 to take form at this point. Yeah, pretty soon we're 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:39.840 gonna have the web there too. And uh, and so 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.680 he's definitely seeing that's where the exciting stuff is happening, 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:50.360 and in finances specifically, that's where he got his financial Yes, 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:53.640 he got pretty he got pretty good at that. And 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.040 he ended up working for fight Tell for a little 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.480 while and then left that for a company called Bankers Trust, 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.400 where he stayed for two years. And then he left 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.800 that company to join a hedge fund firm called D 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.080 E Shaw. Uh. And while he was at d E 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.360 Shaw he met a research associate by the name of 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:17.280 Mackenzie whom he became enamored of. This was after he 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.000 had had an unsuccessful attempt to analytically find the right 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.080 woman for him. Uh. He tried something that he called 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.760 woman flow, which to him meant finding using the the 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.560 analysis that you would use in finance to find a woman. 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.960 That sounds like the absolute worst idea I have heard 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.960 all day. Yeah, it did not work. It turns out 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.360 it was a failed experiment. I cannot I cannot even 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.520 imagine that. Yeah that um wow, and and and but 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.840 but decades before match dot com he was really ahead 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:50.880 of the curve, well more like more like five years 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.400 because at this point game into the nineties. But yeah, 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.520 but he he uh yeah, he ended up meeting Mackenzy 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.520 and the two of them ended up getting married in 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:04.280 nine teen. And uh. Then at the Shaw he was 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.280 put in charge of developing business opportunities for the thing 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:13.119 called the Internet. Internet. Yeah, and uh that's when he 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.639 started to think this might be the right place to 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.399 really focus on business because as he was looking into it, 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:21.879 he realized that there was a growth on the Internet, 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.639 a growth of users, I should say, not just some 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:30.000 weird growth that growth. This is that more and more 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.720 users were joining the Internet at an incredible rate, like 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.840 twenty three hundred percent increase from one year to the next. 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.359 And so with this kind of increase, there's huge amounts 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:46.520 of opportunity. So how could we take advantage of this 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.119 this fact? And it all depends on on the story 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.119 you read, But eventually he came up with the idea 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.879 of well, with the assets that are already in place 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.800 in the United States, the fact that there were really 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.840 big book distributors in the United States, and those were 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:09.440 Ingram and Baker and Taylor, these two enormous entities have 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:16.640 exhaustive databases of titles of books. So all the work 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.040 of organizing the books, of cataloging the books, it's all 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.200 been done. So all that really needs to happen is 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.440 there needs to be some sort of website where someone 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.000 who is interested in books could go look up any 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.639 book that's ever been published and find out if they 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.560 can buy it. And so at first he kind of 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:37.520 talked about this over at d E Show, but it 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.400 was clear that that wasn't going to really pan out there, 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.960 and so instead he made a big decision in his life, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.840 and that was he was going to leave this company. 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:51.840 And he was the youngest executive and yeah, but he 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.920 met with the company's the head of the company, who 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.200 whom he was friends with, and he said, I'm gonna 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.960 I'm gonna believe and start my own company. And that's 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.360 exactly what the founder of the Shaw Shaw had done. 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.040 But he said, you know, you're you're going to be 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:14.800 leaving behind security and a debt, and you know you've 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.960 got guaranteed success in this company. And he said, I'm 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.240 still going to do it, and so, yeah, I mean, 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:22.040 it wasn't just talking about leaving. I mean, this was 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.600 a Wall Street Company. He was talking about moving across 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.720 the country. Yeah, yeah, he He and his wife ended 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:32.080 up taking a bit of a scenic tour of the 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.840 United States, driving all the way out to Seattle and 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.119 uh the the You might ask, well, why why did 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.680 they go to Seattle? Why was that the birthplace of Amazon? 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.560 Why all the places the United States? There are a 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.920 few reasons. One reason is that Seattle happens to be 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.920 close to one of Ingram's distribution facilities. Not Ingram's, of course, 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.359 that was one of those big contributors exactly. So by 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.240 being close to the distribution facility in make it a 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.440 lot easier to ship books out to customers. Convenient. Yeah. 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:06.440 Another reason is that the state of Washington, which, for 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:08.480 those of you who do not know, Seattle is a 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.080 city that is in the state of Washington. State of Washington, 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:16.399 in comparison to other states in the US, is fairly 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:21.280 sparsely populated. The reason why that's important is that, as 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.159 a business operating within the state of Washington, anyone who 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.639 purchased an item in the state of Washington would have 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.600 sales tax added to their purchase. The United States, this 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.920 is kind of complicated, guys, So Generally speaking, the way 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.040 the sales tax was working, at least at that point, 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.359 was that if you bought the you know, the sales 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:44.959 tax applied if you were within the same state as 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:53.320 the Yeah. Outside of that, uh, different rules applied. So essentially, Bezos, 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:55.080 this idea is that, Okay, I'm gonna be close to 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.920 the books and I won't have to add sales sales tax, 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.040 which is a complication. It's all other algorithm, right, and 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.520 it also ends up making customers less happy because I 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:06.680 have to spend more money to buy something. You know 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:08.879 that you quoted a price, and then sales taxes put 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:10.640 on top of it, and you know, it's a whole 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:17.920 dollar more. Yeah I wanted to eat today, Yeah, yeah, 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.760 I had. I had days like that. I had that 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.240 five centerraman. Why can't I afford you today? Oh yeah, 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.120 I guess I'll just be licking the this this piece 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.320 of plastic that once held American cheese. I guess it's 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.920 free pizza in the square again. I'll sign up for 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.959 another credit card. Good days. Um. Anyway, So these were 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:41.880 the reasons why he had decided to move to Seattle, 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.600 and on the way there he actually worked on a 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:49.280 business plan for this company, and like like on his 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.119 laptop in the passenger seat while his wife was driving, 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.199 kind of worked on yes, exactly, like like look over there, 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.879 Mount Rushmore, can't talk working on business plan. Um. And 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:03.040 he ended up stopping off in California before heading up 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:08.119 to Seattle, and there he ended up recruiting his first employee, 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:13.000 Shell Cappen, who was employee number one at Amazon, and 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:15.240 that was he was a programmer. So this is a 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.800 guy who's going to help build the actual software to 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:21.600 make the sight run right exactly. So, because you know, 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:23.960 Amazon is more than just a website. You've got you've 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:27.000 got the website part, which is the forward facing part 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:28.840 of the company, that's the part of the customer sees. 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.280 So so you and I we think of Amazon as 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:34.840 a website. There's a lot of stuff that has to 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.960 happen in the background for the for the actual business 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:43.880 amounts of infrastructure, of of of database management and yeah, 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:49.040 it's credit card systems, right. So so he had to 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:54.240 get someone who was a strong programmer, and Shell ended 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:57.520 up being his first recruit. And uh and according to 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:00.040 the interviews I read, it sounds like he must have 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:04.480 been incredibly persuasive because Shell came across as something of 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:08.680 glass is half empty kind of guy. To be fair, 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:11.600 he had worked for several companies that did not go anywhere, 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.680 so here he kind of expected it to be another 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:17.280 one of those. And according to one interview I read 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.040 with Bezos, Bezos was said, hey, I needed that guy 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:22.640