Amazon.Com: Get Big Fast - Inside the Revolutionary Business Model That Changed the World (Paperback)

A few drawbacks: sometimes it seems as if you are reading an Amazon training manual, and I wondered why I was not getting paid to read it. (Too much like work! Not my work, but work in general.) And it seems like a big appreciation society towards Amazon, which grates, but this is swiftly changed in the final few pages where it shows some criticism of Amazon. Best of all, it questions whether Amazon's business model will work (after all Amazon has yet to make a sustained profit).

One laughable thing about this book was its pretensions of being "an essential purchase for anyone interestes in e-tailing". The business element of this book has been clearly overcooked, giving little end of chapter platitudes to wannabe start-up merchants.

As a biography, it is very good. As a business resource: ho ho.

If you want to learn something new about amazon.com this isn't the book. On the other hand if you haven't read the amazon-story before then don't hesitate to buy the book.

For its founder, Jeff Bezos, it was not, however, just about the money. If that were the case, he would never have left his seven figure Wall Street job. For him, it was about the opportunity to be on the ground floor of a business that would change the retailing community forever. Jeff Bezos, a true visionary, chose to take that challenge, and in doing so, he would forever change the dot.com world and the retailing community. The author, a business reporter for various publications, delineates just how it was that Jeff Bezos did so.

This book offers up an interesting summary on how Jeff Bezos was able to take the online community by storm and upset the status quo. The author provides a biographical narrative on who Jeff Bezos is. It is grounded in the context of where he grew up, his schooling, as well as his early interests. It segues from his Ivy League educational underpinnings to his foray into the upper echelons of Wall Street, deriving the experience that he needed in order to take on the risky proposition of starting up his own dot.com company. It is clearly the story of a visionary and decision maker with heart.

The book succinctly details the rise of Amazon.com as an e-commerce force with which to be reckoned. It tracks its growth and change from an upstart, fledging, by- the-seat-of-its-pants-company to one that is now a staple of the popular lexicon. It superficially explores the philosophy of Jeff Bezos in terms of having his business "get big fast" and the technological, financial, and logistical hurdles that the business needed to overcome in order to do so. The author also keys in on the ability of Jeff Bezos to think out of the box, when so many business pundits said that what he sought to do could not be done.

The overall texture of this book is enhanced by Information provided by those with some insider knowledge, such as those who knew Jeff Bezos, those who worked with him in those early halcyon days, rival "brick and mortar" executives, business analysts, and financiers, among others. This book, which is a look at a visionary and his company, details how that visionary was able to transform his company into a veritable cultural phenomenon unto itself. Those who are devotees of Amazon will find this well-written book heady stuff, indeed, as it makes for absorbing reading.