History of Amazon

I wonder where the spray painted sign went: twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1229952158667288576/photo/1. As mentioned at 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 youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=345 from Video 4. "Jeff Bezos presentation at MIT (2002)".

Figure 1. The first Amazon logo. Source. The logo actually depicts the Amazon River.

Video 1. Amazon.com report by Computer Chronicles (1996) Source. Contains some good footage of their early storehouse.

Video 2. Jeff Bezos interview by Chuck Films (1997) Source. On the street, with a lot of car noise. CC BY-SA, nice.

Video 3. Order from Bulgaria by Jeff Bezos (2002) Source. Full video: Video 4. "Jeff Bezos presentation at MIT (2002)"

Video 4. Jeff Bezos presentation at MIT (2002) Source. Good talk:

youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=220 why Seattle: tech talent, and nearest to the largest book warehouse in Roseburg Oregon
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=232 first hire, VP of Engineering, Shel Kaphan
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=267 screenshot of the first version. Can't find any working version from before 2000 on web.archive.org/web/19990601000000*/amazon.com unfortunately.
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=303 kadabra/cadaver
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=345 Shel, how tall do you want your desk to be?
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=610 order from Bulgaria: Video 3. "Order from Bulgaria by Jeff Bezos (2002)"
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
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1010 item merging in a single package from warehouse
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!
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1251 A/B testing
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1314 passes word to employee Robert Frederick, MIT alumni, black dude, AWS manager
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=1517 demos something in AWS
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2171 Jeff's back
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.
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2409 warehouse uses a technique called random stow, which store items randomly.
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: www.amazon.co.uk/OXO-Good-Grips-Salad-Spinner/dp/B009KCFHAW
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2599 decentralized pub/sub pattern, cache warming
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!
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=2938 vote fraud after someone from crowd mentions. God reviewed the Bible.
youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=3253 hiring slide with contact jeff@amazon.com Send your CV, today!

Video 5. Jeff Bezos Revealed by Bloomberg (2015) Source.

youtu.be/tfAhTtBlb2Q?t=849: Tim O'Reilly bomb shelling Amazon anticompetitive acquisitions
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 6. cosine by Jeff Bezos (2018) Source.

Yasantha Rajakarunanayake: twitter.com/yasantha62/status/1042052665893511168.

PDE mention in another video from 2009: youtu.be/TYwhIO-OXTs?t=118

Full original video from The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. (2018): youtu.be/zN1PyNwjHpc?t=1544

Bezos also told PDE stuff in interviews as early as 1999: archive.ph/a3zBK.

Bibliography:

archive.ph/ucSHN This is what it was like to work at Amazon 20 years ago (2015). Good annecdotes from the first offices.

Table of contents
- Well-capitalized Seattle start-up seeks Unix developers
- Shel Kaphan

Well-capitalized Seattle start-up seeks Unix developers (Amazon's first job announcement, 1994)

groups.google.com/g/ba.jobs.offered/c/-rvJUMBbZ18?pli=1

Apparently posted to ba.jobs.offered Usenet newsgroup?

Jeff's email was bezos@netcom.com at the time.

Shel Kaphan

First Amazon hire, wrote and led the team that wrote v1.

He looks like an older and more experienced dude compared to Bezos at the time.

Bibliography: . www.geekwire.com/2011/meet-shel-kaphan-amazoncom-employee-1/2/ also mentions that unlike California, there's no sales tax in the state of Washington, which is important for selling books.