In Focus

Bezos: He's No Bozo!

Of all the research I have done on various companies and their leaders, never before have I seen such an enormous amount of data on one man. A virtual library of information with every click of the mouse. A horde of articles and photos at my disposal; similar to the average shopping experience at Amazon.com, the company founded and managed by this e-commerce icon. As easily as I can order a copy of the latest John Grisham book on Amazon, I can bring up some tidbit or hefty tome on Jeffrey Preston Bezos. This guy is amazing.

Bezos has a colorful background. He wasn't exactly your ordinary kid; he showed marked signs of genius even as a toddler. When he decided he was tired of his crib, he took it apart and left it in a heap on the floor. He enjoyed dabbling in electronics kits and loved TV shows like Star Trek. When he got older, he amused himself by creating gadgets like a buzzer that would go off if there were any siblings trespassing in his room. He even invented a makeshift solar-type microwave, using aluminum foil and an umbrella.

Bezos graduated from high school as a popular class valedictorian and notably opted not to partake in drinking, drugs, or profanity. His summers were spent on his grandfather's ranch in the middle of nowhere. He rode horses and did his usual tinkering, thoroughly enjoying the change of pace from his hometown, Miami.

Princeton University can proudly boast of their former electrical engineering and computer science student. With degree in hand, Mr. Bezos found employment for two years with Fitel, a start-up company building networks for international financial trades, then went to work at Bankers Trust for another two years. Shortly thereafter, the always-thinking Bezos moved on to a company called D.E. Shaw, that used computers to decipher consumer trends. One day while futzing around on the Internet, Bezos saw a statistic that blew his ever-lovin' mind! The Internet was growing at an incredible 2300% per year! Holy opportunities, Batman! (Or Captain Kirk. whatever)

Bezos went berserk. envisioning all the possibilities. He eventually decided that books would be his best bet, and as fate would have it, the American Booksellers Association was having a convention nearby. Discussing his ideas with as many merchants as he could, he then ran home and blurted out his idea to his wife, MacKenzie. She gave him her blessing and after Bezos resigned from D.E. Shaw, the plan was presented to family members. He warned them this was risky business, and not to give if they couldn't afford to lose. Obviously they had faith in Jeff, and scraping together his newly found capital, he and his wife headed to Seattle, Washington to begin this new, exciting chapter in their lives.

To Bezos' surprise, the plan pretty much took off from the get-go. In 1995 Amazon became available to the world. Sans a single bit of press, in 30 days customers in 50 states and 45 countries had purchased a book from his site. This was gonna be huge. Amazonian.

Suddenly, the whole tech world was talking about Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com. Mostly though, it was to poke fun. Many analysts felt that the moment bookstore giants such as Borders and Barnes & Noble entered the on-line picture, Amazon would be history. They even referred to the company as Amazon.Toast. Well, hopefully they were hungry, because it was only a matter of time before they were eating their words.

With the exception of this past year (yuck), tech stocks were skyrocketing like crazy. Amazon was one of those stocks. Nowadays, stockholders are a lot more skeptical of these fair-weather companies. and it shows. It has become a matter of who can survive in the long run. And some are again questioning Amazon's stamina. Bezos, with his trademark-snorting laugh, doesn't seem to be too worried about Amazon's survival. In fact, the eventual demise of many of these companies can be a good thing, in his mind. He feels it is good to pull the weeds, so the good stuff can grow. This is a fairly new industry, simply working out its kinks. And yes, only the strong will survive. Some of these new companies will be strong. Amazon will be stronger.

One of the troublesome topics for Bezos is the question of profitability. For a long time he seemed to dance around the question. Finally, however, and to the delight of Amazon's shareholders, they are now predicting a profit by 2002. This required some restructuring, including the layoffs of 15% of their employees, the closing of the customer service center in Seattle and the distribution center in McDonough, Georgia. Recently, Bezos made another big decision -- he called for "getting the crap out." In other words, Amazon, in their desire to be a one-stop shop for "anything", was finding "anything" to be too much. Many of their newer items were not profitable. He wasn't about to wait around and continue with something that wasn't working, so he nipped it. Good for him.

Quarterly revenues were up to $972 million, an increase of 44% from $676 million at the same time last year. They had forecast an increase to around $960 million. So even with the trials and errors this young company has faced trying to find its niche, it still comes out ahead of the game. Ya gotta like that.

With Bezos' upbeat personality and ability to make things happen, Amazon isn't going away anytime soon. Throw into that equation his financial stake in the company (not to mention his parents', now 6% owners), and his desire to succeed, and you've got a success story. And if it's been written, I'm sure you'll find it at www.amazon.com.