Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot.Com Juggernaut [Paperback]

It was then in 1996 that James Marcus, literary type, was lured to Amland to bring, he thought, some literary class to a commercial venture. He was thus among the original denizens of Amazonia, #77 on the hired list--a list that eventually included over eight thousand names. Hired to write quickie reviews and interview writers and blurb up the Amazon pages, Marcus also learned how to answer e-mail cheerily and helpfully, how to change the content on Amazon's pages, and occasionally how to stuff product into boxes for shipping.

One can see that Marcus was a little older, noticeably less geeky, and somewhat of a literary dandy compared to his fellow stock option holders. One can further see that he played the game with an eye on the exit and was never completely comfortable being a corporate cog. I was reminded of the strong allegiance to the corporate family that the modern corporation demands of its white-collar types, the long hours, the frequent meetings and the morale- and team-building conferences, the pep rallies, the employee trips and outings, etc.

The story here is not a tell-all (although there are some juicy tidbits) nor is it a chronicle of the rise and fall, and rise again of one of the Internet's stellar giants. Instead it is a very personal tale of being hired by Amazon in 1996, what he did, whom he met and worked with, what they said and did, and why he eventually left. His own personal rise and fall of fortune, peaking at about $9-million early in the year 2000 (consisting mostly of unvested stock options that he couldn't yet sell) and ending during the meltdown, is an interesting one nonetheless, and Marcus tells it well. As a literary type, he takes his time to polish the prose and use authentic diction; and there is considerable evidence of a brow-knitted search for le bon mot, which he often finds. Mainly, he has uncluttered the text and attended to the reader's needs, and so the story flows.

One can see, of course, that this was premeditated. Marcus knew he was going to write about his experiences at Amazon as soon as he was hired, or perhaps before. That is, he took notes while he whistled while he worked, which is why he can simulate conversations eight years old and can recall the exact titles of books he chased down in Amazon.com's mammoth Dawson Street warehouse.

But one is struck by how downright mundane Marcus gets at times. Here he is at the warehouse doing the obligatory help-out during the Christmas rush. He's talking about the employees who ship the stuff year round. He says, "They considered themselves the core of the business, the extreme employees. Yet they weren't being rewarded with stock options like their white-collar counterparts. It made for the occasional display of territorial rudeness." And then he gives us some action and conversation that amounts to "a tall guy with a tongue stud" standing in his way and not responding to his "can I get by?"

Not exactly exhilarating stuff, and to be honest, some of this will bore a lot of readers.

More interesting is this story: Marcus was at a morale-building ski trip conference in his first year at Amazon. He joined a group at the hotel bar playing a parlor game in which you have to name a movie star of the same sex that you would have sex with. Jeff (the Jeff) was in the group. Guess whom Jeff Bezos named? Indiana Jones! (That would be Harrison Ford.)

Marcus's portrait of CEO and visionary Jeff Bezos is carefully if sketchily drawn, and Marcus seems to get as much of Jeff into the book as he can. There is Jeff planning, scheming, laughing, flying everywhere, appearing, speaking, guiding, cajoling, mesmerizing, seemingly having a lot of fun. Jeff even worked (briefly for show, of course) in the warehouse running a cart up and down the aisles "picking" books to send to customers.

Marcus recounts some of Jeff's mistaken purchases (what's a few hundred million dollars more or less?), and reports on once seeing Jeff give an employee a public dressing down. But mostly we see Jeff at something close to play: Jeff genially allowing himself to be dunked at a company picnic (by employees throwing a ball at a target), Jeff in a hula skirt, etc. Indeed, Marcus finds nothing negative to say (or show) about one of the Internet's most powerful moguls. One gets the sense that Jeff never showed his claws in Marcus's presence or that Marcus is being more than careful.

In the Epilogue, we see Jeff playing tennis against Anna Kournikova in a PR stunt while Marcus watches, the manuscript of this book under his arm, hoping to get Jeff's attention and hand it to him.

In the final analysis what Marcus finds out about Amazon is that it's "always day one" (one of Jeff's slogans) and what really counts is "monetizing those eyeballs" and "revenue velocity."

Bottom line: a little too precious at times, a little too mundane, but overall a good read that will especially appeal to dot.com watchers and Amazonians, past and present.