= History of Amazon
{wiki}
I wonder where the spray painted sign went: https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1229952158667288576/photo/1[]. As mentioned at https://officechai.com/startups/amazon-first-office/ and elsewhere, Jeff did all he could to save money, e.g. he made the desks himself from pieces of wood. Mentioned e.g. at https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=345 from <video Jeff Bezos presentation at MIT (2002)>.
\Image[https://web.archive.org/web/20220416055932im_/https://api.freelogodesign.org/assets/blog/img/20180911090322287amazon-logo-history.jpg]
{title=The first <Amazon> logo}
{description=The logo actually depicts the <Amazon River>.}
{source=https://www.freelogodesign.org/blog/2018/09/10/the-amazon-logo-story}
\Video[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLa4p6EemLk]
{title=Amazon.com report by Computer Chronicles (1996)}
{description=Contains some good footage of their early storehouse.}
\Video[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWRbTnE1PEM]
{title=<Jeff Bezos> interview by Chuck Films (1997)}
{description=On the street, with a lot of <car> noise. <CC BY-SA>, nice.}
\Video[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9HcLxl4XOg]
{title=Order from Bulgaria by <Jeff Bezos> (2002)}
{description=Full video: <video Jeff Bezos presentation at MIT (2002)>}
\Video[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2xGBlT0cqY]
{title=Jeff Bezos presentation at <MIT> (2002)}
{description=
Good talk:
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=220 why Seattle: tech talent, and nearest to the largest book warehouse in Roseburg Oregon
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=232 first hire, VP of Engineering, <Shel Kaphan>
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=267 screenshot of the first version. Can't find any working version from before 2000 on https://web.archive.org/web/19990601000000*/amazon.com unfortunately.
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=303 kadabra/cadaver
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=345 <Shel Kaphan>[Shel], how tall do you want your desk to be?
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=610 order from Bulgaria: <video Order from Bulgaria by Jeff Bezos (2002)>
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=733 customers don't really know what they want. One is reminded of <Steve Jobs customers don't know what they want quote>
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1010 item merging in a single package from warehouse
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1187 and other points mentions repeatedly how much effort they've put into result personalization. But of course, that also means tracking everything people do. Including users that are not logged in. Would not fly well in 2020's increasing privacy concerns!
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1251 A/B testing
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1314 passes word to employee Robert Frederick, <MIT> alumni, black dude, <AWS> manager
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1517 demos something in AWS
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2171 Jeff's back
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2312 similarity searches on some somewhat perverted for-male books. Golden. 2020's <political correctness> would never allow that in a presentation. A bit further ahead mentions they've optimized to run it in "small machines" with only 2GB RAM, still likely large for the time. Also mentions that if you do it naively, then you're going to say "also bought Harry Potter" for everyone (hugely popular book at the time). You've got to work harder to do better non obvious recommendations.
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2409 warehouse uses a technique called random stow, which store items randomly.
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2563 OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner. The reviews must be fake, but Jeff doesn't recognize it. Priceless. Still on sale: https://www.amazon.co.uk/OXO-Good-Grips-Salad-Spinner/dp/B009KCFHAW
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2599 decentralized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish%E2%80%93subscribe_pattern[pub/sub] pattern, cache warming
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2685 "you've bought this previously feature" that reduces sales: people forget they bought things and buy them a second time!
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2938 vote fraud after someone from crowd mentions. God reviewed the Bible.
* https://youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=3253 hiring slide with contact jeff@amazon.com Send your CV, today!
}
\Video[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfAhTtBlb2Q]
{title=<Jeff Bezos> Revealed by Bloomberg (2015)}
{description=
* https://youtu.be/tfAhTtBlb2Q?t=849[]: <Tim O'Reilly> bomb shelling <Amazon anticompetitive acquisitions>
\Q[[I do know of a number of cases in which he [Bezos] has acquired companies in order to take out competitors, potential future competitors. Rather than because he actually wants that business to continue.]]
}
\Video[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFnV6EM-wzY]
{title=<cosine> by <Jeff Bezos> (2018)}
{description=
Yasantha Rajakarunanayake: https://twitter.com/yasantha62/status/1042052665893511168[].
<PDE> mention in another video from 2009: https://youtu.be/TYwhIO-OXTs?t=118[]
Full original video from The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. (2018): https://youtu.be/zN1PyNwjHpc?t=1544
Bezos also told PDE stuff in interviews as early as 1999: https://archive.ph/a3zBK[].
}
Bibliography:
* https://archive.ph/ucSHN This is what it was like to work at Amazon 20 years ago (2015). Good annecdotes from the first offices.
Back to article page