
Jeff Bezos on the Future of Amazon.com - atestu
http://www.smartmoney.com/Investing/Stocks/Jeff-Bezos-on-the-Future-of-Amazon-com/
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nebula
"Bezos: We are responding to customer needs.

SM: No one asked for the Kindle."

What's wrong with this guy (the interviewer)?

Imagine Bezos answering that question with the following quote:

 _If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said, "Faster
horses." -- Henry Ford_

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omouse
The interviewer is an asshole,

" _Your handlers_ said I could only talk to you about Kindle but that you
wouldn't give specifics on its sales. _That sounds paranoid._ "

"Amazon has about 6 percent of all U.S. sales online. That's huge. _Why muck
it up_ with all the other businesses you've added, like manufacturing [the
Kindle] and your new customer-service software?"

Totally unprofessional and if I were the editor I would be embarrassed to
publish this piece of shit. Just publishing Bezos's answers would be better
than seeing the way SmartMoney's interview asked the questions.

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sachinag
I totally disagree. This was a smart interviewer setting the tone early - one,
the interviewer appealed to Bezos' ego to get the PR handler's rules dismissed
(win - Jeff answered questions about AWS) and made it clear that PR answers
wouldn't be acceptable (fail - Jeff was remarkably on message).

Interviewers are supposed to get interesting answers out of their subjects.
Being combative and having a point of view are tactical decisions, not a sign
of being unprofessional.

(As an aside, Sarah Lacy's fawning over Zuck was a tactic that failed. It also
might have worked if it wasn't up on stage in front of everyone. Different
tactics work for different interviewers and different subjects in different
settings and times.)

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jamiequint
Bezos is a remarkably good PR bot, his speech at Startup School last year was
a 30 minute long worthy PR spiel for AWS and probably the least informative
talk ever given at Startup School.

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mrtron
"We launched our Web services two years ago; it's the equivalent of creating
an electric grid, but for computing. Recently, I went to Luxembourg and
visited a 300-year-old brewery. It had this gigantic relic of a generator from
when it had to make its own electricity. As soon as they could buy off-grid,
they did. Making their own electricity didn't make their beer taste better.
It's the same for running your own data center."

Awesome analogy. I don't understand why so many people want to host their own
services. Stick to your core business.

~~~
kragen
Many businesses have their own photocopiers, fax machines, and PBXs, do their
own accounting, maintain their own supplier lists, provide support to their
own customers when they have problems, and pay their own employees, even
though you can outsource each of these services. Sometimes the problems of
outsourcing a business function are greater than the benefits of the enhanced
specialization.

For several years now, the vast majority of companies that have an internet
connection have had some of their internet-connected computers inside their
own companies, and others somewhere else, like a colocation center. Even
though AWS is pretty awesome, I don't expect that to change anytime soon; the
balance will shift back and forth according to things like available
technology, legal liability, experienced quality of service, and so on.

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maurycy
Worth reading for this single phrase: "Our approach is not to set a goal. Our
approach has been to create the best physical model and let customers choose".

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swdesignguy
The interviewer kept trying to get him to admit he was spreading himself thin.
What gives?

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delano
This is a chaotic and cynical interview.

