Pull the curtain on Internet Retail Magician.
A little over a quarter of a century ago, when online retailer Amazon started doing business, most of us would have known it, if we knew it at all, as a discount book seller. For many of us, the idea of buying anything online, along with having our bank details sent over to the air, was an odd experience. But we're used to it, and today Amazon is in the top ten list of the largest companies in the world by revenue, and its founder Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world by a mile.
It should follow that the man has a lot to say about business innovation and entrepreneurship. And so it comes as a surprise that his "combined writing" - grouped together here under the title "Invent & Wander" (Harvard Business Review, £ 21, ISBN 9781647820718) - should amount to such a tiny amount of generously separated bits. Indeed, the entire anthology consists of copies of the shareholders ’annual letters, speeches, and interviews, from which the reader aims to gain an“ insider's view of why and how it succeeds ”.
While no one can argue with a man's commercial success, there are times when it just can't earn much to pull off the curtain and watch the therapist take the controls. In his article "Intuition, Curiosity, and the Power of Roaming" (which he provided with more than a page of statistics regarding total physical Amazon commercial sales by third-party partners), his extrapolation is that outside sellers "kick our first-party back badly."
To be fair to Bezos, his analysis of the reasons for this kicking is interesting and will get tech CEOs hanging on every word. But the problem is, after he's focused on the idea of "wandering" as the core concept, he's flogging it to death. Yes, we need to walk around, says Bezos. But we also need efficiency. Honestly, "You need to hire both." But it's not all melody or bass. When it comes to risk, later in the same article, he makes a slightly annoying point: the scale of your goal success needs to be balanced by a willingness to accept the risks of failure on a proportional scale. This is the time when Bezos is at his best, when the apparent kindness of his words is given weight and authority.
Upon completion of "Invent & Wander", it is tempting to ask the question - "Is that all?" It is tempting to wonder how a man who became richer than Croesus through bookselling could produce a book that at first glance appears insignificant. But it is worth noting that Bezos did not get to where he is today by not knowing what he is doing, and that any piece of insight that falls off his plate may be worth digesting internally. But you feel there is a lot in the tank that is worth the wait.
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