Amazon Unbound
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Bezos was the thirtieth richest person in the world, with an $18.1 billion net worth: Jeff Bezos profile, “Billionaires: March 2011,” Forbes, March 9, 2011, retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110313201303if_/http://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos (January 17, 2021).
In early 2012, anonymous fliers taped around South Lake Union found a derogatory name: Nicole Brodeur, “Neighbors Talking About Amazon,” Seattle Times, January 12, 2012, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/neighbors-talking-about-amazon/ (January 17, 2021).
“Today’s big tech companies”… Zappos and Whole Food Market and be stamped into smaller parts: Senator Elizabeth Warren, “Here’s How We Can Break Up Big Tech,” Medium, March 8, 2019, https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-tech-9ad9e0da324c (January 17, 2021).
CHAPTER 1: THE ÜBER PRODUCT MANAGER
the Ivona founders then had to renegotiate the actor’s contract: Katarzyna Niedurny, “Kariera Głosu Ivony. ‘Wsiadam do windy i słyszę jak mówię“piętro pierwsze’ ” (“Ivona’s Voice Career. ‘I get in the elevator and hear me say “first floor” ’ ”) January 4, 2019, https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/tylko-w-onecie/jacek-labijak-o-karierze-glosu-jacek-w-syntezatorze-mowy-ivona/kyht0wl (January 19, 2021).
he asked it to play one of his favorite songs: the theme to the classic TV show Battlestar Galactica: Eugene Kim, “The Inside Story of How Amazon Created Echo, the Next Billion-Dollar Business No One Saw Coming,” Business Insider, April 2, 2016, https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-amazon-created-echo-2016-4 (January 19, 2021).
Users could ask it questions… almost crashed the company’s servers: David Baker, “William Tunstall-Pedoe: The Brit Taking on Apple’s Siri with ‘Evi,’ ” Wired UK, May 8, 2012, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-brit-taking-on-siri (January 19, 2021).
with a rumored $26 million deal: Mike Butcher, “Sources Say Amazon Acquired Siri-Like Evi App For $26M—Is A Smartphone Coming?” TechCrunch, April 17, 2013, https://techcrunch.com/2013/04/17/sources-say-amazon-acquired-siri-like-evi-app-for-26m-is-a-smartphone-coming/ (January 19, 2021).
“giant treelike structure”: James Vlahos, “Amazon Alexa and the Search for the One Perfect Answer,” Wired, February 18, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-alexa-search-for-the-one-perfect-answer/ (January 19, 2021).
harness a large number of high-powered computer processors to train its speech models: Nikko Ström, “Nikko Ström at AI Frontiers: Deep Learning in Alexa,” Slideshare, January 14, 2017, https://www.slideshare.net/AIFrontiers/nikko-strm-deep-learning-in-alexa (January 19, 2021).
a patent on the idea was filed: Amazon. Techniques for mobile deceive charging using robotic devices. U.S. Patent 9711985, filed March 30, 2015. https://www.freepatentsonline.com/9711985.html (January 19, 2021).
“The biggest needle movers… inner imagination about what’s possible”: Jeff Bezos, “2018 Letter to Shareholders,” Amazon, April 11, 2018, https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2018-letter-to-shareholders (January 19, 2021).
tried to get the 3D display to work… owl-themed code name, Duke: Austin Carr, “The Inside Story of Jeff Bezos’s Fire Phone Debacle,” Fast Company, January 6, 2015, https://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire (January 19, 2021).
Freed said that Bezos told him afterward, “You can’t… lose a minute of sleep”: Charles Duhigg, “Is Amazon Unstoppable?” New Yorker, October 10, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/is-amazon-unstoppable (January 19, 2021).
army of workers manually reviewed the recordings: Matt Day, Giles Turner, and Natalia Drozdiak, “Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa,” Bloomberg, April 10, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-10/is-anyone-listening-to-you-on-alexa-a-global-team-reviews-audio?sref=dJuchiL5 (January 19, 2021).
lobbied to include a remote control… to see if customers would use it: Joshua Brustein, “The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo,” Bloomberg, April 19, 2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-amazon-echo/ (January 19, 2021).
“I just spoke to the future and it listened”: Mario Aguilar, “Amazon Echo Review: I Just Spoke to the Future and It Listened,” Gizmodo, June 25, 2015, https://gizmodo.com/amazon-echo-review-i-just-spoke-to-the-future-and-it-1672926712 (January 19, 2021).
“it’s the most innovative device Amazon’s made in years”: Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, “Amazon’s Echo Might Be Its Most Important Product in Years,” Gizmodo, November 6, 2014, https://gizmodo.com/amazons-echo-might-be-its-most-important-product-in-yea-1655513291 (January 19, 2021).
2015 holiday season, Amazon sold a million Echo devices: Brustein, “The Real Story.”
“like something you might plant a succulent in”: David Pierce, “Review: Google Home,” Wired, November 11, 2016, https://www.wired.com/2016/11/review-google-home/ (January 19, 2021).
sell Alexa in eighty new countries: Todd Bishop, “Amazon Bringing Echo and Alexa to 80 Additional Countries in Major Global Expansion,” GeekWire, December 8, 2017, https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-bringing-echo-alexa-80-additional-countries-major-global-expansion/ (January 19, 2021).
March 2018, a bug caused Alexas… unprompted laughter: Shannon Liao, “Amazon Has a Fix for Alexa’s Creepy Laughs,” Verge, March 7, 2018, https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/3/7/17092334/amazon-alexa-devices-strange-laughter (January 19, 2021).
“extremely rare occurrence”… “as unlikely as this string of events is”: Matt Day, “Amazon’s Alexa recorded and shared a conversation without consent, report says,” Seattle Times, March 24, 2018, https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazons-alexa-recorded-and-shared-a-conversation-without-consent-report-says (February 12, 2021).
errantly informed a child that Santa was a myth: James Vincent, “Inside Amazon’s $3.5 Million Competition to Make Alexa Chat Like a Human,” Verge, June 13, 2018, https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17453994/amazon-alexa-prize-2018-competition-conversational-ai-chatbots (February 12, 2018).
CHAPTER 2: A NAME TOO BORING TO NOTICE
“Only if we can have a truly differentiated idea… we would love to”: Jeff Bezos interviewed by Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose, 34:40, November 16, 2012, https://charlierose.com/videos/17252 (January 19, 2021).
an article in the New York Times that… recognize cats: John Markoff, “How Many Computers to Identify a Cat? 16,000,” New York Times, June 25, 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/technology/in-a-big-network-of-computers-evidence-of-machine-learning.html (January 19, 2021).
used a pole with a camera attached to it to peek inside: Jacob Demmitt, “Amazon’s Bookstore Revealed? Blueprints Provide New Clues About Mysterious Seattle Site,” GeekWire, October 12, 2015, https://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazons-bookstore-revealed-blueprints-provide-new-clues-about-mysterious-seattle-site/ (January 19, 2021).
to serve as a model for kitchens… as part of a massive rollout of Go stores: Brad Stone and Matt Day, “Amazon’s Most Ambitious Research Project Is a Convenience Store,” Bloomberg, July 18, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-07-18/amazon-s-most-ambitious-research-project-is-a-convenience-store?sref=dJuchiL5 (January 19, 2021).
ended up being delayed a year: Laura Stevens, “Amazon Delays Opening of Cashierless Store to Work Out Kinks,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-delays-convenience-store-opening-to-work-out-kinks-1490616133 (January 19, 2021); Olivia Zaleski and Spencer Soper, “Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time,” Bloomberg, November 15, 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-15/amazon-s-cashierless-store-is-almost-ready-for-prime-time?sref=dJuchiL5 (January 19, 2021).
“The whole process… items weren’t free”: Shara Tibken and Ben Fox Rubin, “What It’s Like Inside Amazon’s Futuristic, Automated Store,” CNET, January 21, 2018, https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-go-futuristic-automated-store-seattle-no-cashiers-cashless/ (January 19, 2021).
In 2017, Amazon spent $22.6 billion on
R&D: Amazon includes the costs of operating AWS as part of its R&D expenses. See Rani Molla, “Amazon Spent Nearly $23 Billion on R&D Last Year—More Than Any Other U.S. Company,” Vox, April 9, 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/4/9/17204004/amazon-research-development-rd (January 19, 2021).
Bezos had envisioned thousands of Amazon Go stores: Spencer Soper, “Amazon Will Consider Opening Up to 3,000 Cashierless Stores by 2021,” Bloomberg, September 19, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-19/amazon-is-said-to-plan-up-to-3-000-cashierless-stores-by-2021?sref=dJuchiL5 (January 19, 2021).
“We’ve learned a lot… ten times as big”: Sebastian Herrera and Aaron Tilley, “Amazon Opens Cashierless Supermarket in Latest Push to Sell Food,” Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-opens-cashierless-supermarket-in-latest-push-to-sell-food-11582617660?mod=hp_lead_pos10 (January 19, 2021).
“We all know if you swing for the fences… important to be bold”: Jeff Bezos, “2015 Letter to Shareholders,” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312515144741/d895323dex991.htm (January 19, 2021).
Amazon Dash Carts, which allowed shoppers to scan items: Robin Ajello and Spencer Soper, “Amazon Develops Smart Shopping Cart for Cashierless Checkout,” Bloomberg, July 14, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-14/amazon-develops-smart-shopping-cart-for-cashierless-checkout?sref=dJuchiL5 (January 19, 2021).
CHAPTER 3: COWBOYS AND KILLERS
I visited Amazon.in and Flipkart in Bangalore, India, in September 2018 with my colleague Saritha Rai. This chapter is based in part on our story, “Amazon Wants India to Shop Online, and It’s Battling Walmart for Supremacy,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 18, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-18/amazon-battles-walmart-in-indian-e-commerce-market-it-created (January 19, 2021). I also relied in part on Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story by Mihir Dalal (New Delhi: Pan Macmillan India, 2019). I interviewed Juan Carlos Garcia, the former CEO of Amazon Mexico, on August 3, 2019—before he became a fugitive from justice.
CCTV, drew attention to counterfeit goods, such as fake brand-name cosmetics, on Amazon’s marketplace: Nicholas Wadhams, “Amazon China Unit Closes Vendor After Report of Fake Cosmetics,” Business of Fashion, March 20, 2014, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/technology/amazon-china-unit-closes-vendor-report-fake-cosmetics (January 19, 2021).
Between 2011 and 2016, Amazon’s market share in China fell from 15 percent to less than 1 percent: Arjun Kharpal, “Amazon Is Shutting Down Its China Marketplace Business. Here’s Why It Has Struggled,” CNBC, April 18, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/amazon-china-marketplace-closing-down-heres-why.html (January 19, 2021), and Felix Richter, “Amazon Has Yet to Crack the Chinese Market,” Stastista, February 22, 2017, https://www.statista.com/chart/8230/china-e-commerce-market-share/ (January 19, 2021).
the Bansals asked for $1 billion: Dalal, Big Billion Startup, 101.
A shaky handheld video of the launch: “Amazon.in Goes Live—5th June 2013,” YouTube video, 2:38, posted by Amit Deshpande, March 11, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFUw6OyugfQ&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=AmitDeshpande (January 19, 2021).
“You guys are going to fail… need cowboys”: Jay Green, “Amazon Takes Cowboy Tactics to ‘Wild, Wild East’ of India,” Seattle Times, October 3, 2015, https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-takes-cowboy-tactics-to-wild-wild-east-of-india/ (January 19, 2021).
responsible for around 40 percent of sales: Mihir Dalal and Shrutika Verma, “Amazon’s JV Cloudtail Is Its Biggest Seller in India,” Mint, October 29, 2015, https://www.livemint.com/Companies/RjEDJkA3QyBSTsMDdaXbCN/Amazons-JV-Cloudtail-is-its-biggest-seller-in-India.html (January 19, 2021).
(“Test the Boundaries of what is allowed by law”): Aditya Kalra, “Amazon documents reveal company’s secret strategy to dodge India’s regulators,” Reuters, February 17, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-operation (February 23, 2021).
Flipkart announced a fresh infusion of $1 billion in venture capital: Dalal, Big Billion Startup, 163.
“My own view… thinking about their customers”: Sunny Sen and Josey Puliyenthuruthel, “Knock on Wood, India Is Shaping Up Like Our Businesses in Japan, Germany, the UK and the US,” Business Today, October 26, 2014, https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/features/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-sachin-bansal-binny-bansal/story/211027.html (January 19, 2021).
“I am completely at his disposal”: “Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Meets PM Narendra Modi,” India TV, October 4, 2014, https://www.indiatvnews.com/business/india/narendra-modi-jeff-bezos-amazon-ceo-flipkart-e-commerce-14744.html (January 20, 2021).
the country represented less than 7 percent of its total sales in Latin America: Carolina Ruiz, “MercadoLibre busca alianzas con minoristas en México” (“MercadoLibre Seeks Alliances with Businesses in Mexico”), El Financiero, OctOBER 11, 2014, https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/tech/mercadolibre-busca-alianzas-con-competidores-en-mexico (January 20, 2021).
“all weak-kneed around entrepreneurs”: James Quinn, “Jeff Bezos… Amazon Man in the Prime of His Life,” Irish Independent, August 19, 2015, https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/news/jeff-bezos-amazon-man-in-the-prime-of-his-life-31463414.html (January 20, 2021).
$3-4 billion a year for search ads: Estimate for Amazon’s 2015 Google search spend provided by Andy Taylor, director of research at Tinuiti.
leading player in the country’s $7 billion ecommerce market—slightly ahead of MercadoLibre and Walmart: Daina Beth Solomon, “Amazon Becomes Mexico’s Top Online Retailer in 2017: Report,” Reuters, December 15, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-retail/amazon-becomes-mexicos-top-online-retailer-in-2017-report-idUSKBN1E92ID (January 20, 2021).
“Ex-Amazon Mexico CEO on the run”: Jon Lockett, “Ex-Amazon Mexico CEO on the Run in the US After Wife’s Mysterious Murder… Months After ‘Battering Her,’ ” The Sun, December 12, 2019, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10538850/amazon-boss-shooting-mexico-fugitive/ (January 20, 2021).
Chai Carts: Aditi Shrivastava, “How Amazon Is Wooing Small Merchants With Its ‘Chai Cart’ Programme,” Economic Times, August 21, 2015, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/entrepreneurship/how-amazon-is-wooing-small-merchants-with-its-chai-cart-programme/articleshow/48565449.cms (January 20, 2021).
“much more than a market”: “Modi in US: 10 Things PM Said at US-India Business Council,” Financial Express, June 8, 2016, https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/modi-in-us-10-things-pm-said-at-us-india-business-council/277037/ (January 20, 2021).
“reliable partner”: Ibid.
“for making Amazon.in the most visited e-commerce site in the country”: Malavika Velayanikal, “It’s Official: Flipkart’s App-Only Experiment with Myntra Was a Disaster,” Tech in Asia, March 28, 2016, https://www.techinasia.com/flipkart-myntra-app-only-disaster (January 20, 2021).
proposed a new set of rules… brokering more than 25 percent of the site’s total sales: Jon Russell, “New E-commerce Restrictions in India Just Ruined Christmas for Amazon and Walmart,” TechCrunch, December 27, 2018, https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/27/amazon-walmart-india-e-commerce-restrictions/ (January 20, 2021).
Binny Bansal was promptly ousted: Saritha Rai and Matthew Boyle, “How Walmart Decided to Oust an Icon of India’s Tech Industry,” Bloomberg, November 15, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-15/how-walmart-decided-to-oust-an-icon-of-india-s-tech-industry?sref=dJuchiL5 (January 20, 2021); Saritha Rai, “Flipkart Billionaire Breaks His Silence After Walmart Ouster,” Bloomberg, February 4, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-05/flipkart-billionaire-breaks-his-silence-after-walmart-ouster?sref=dJuchiL5 (January 20, 2021).
And in 2020, ugly divorce proceedings: “Flipkart Founder Sachin Bansal’s Wife Files Dowry Harassment Case,” Tribune, March 5, 2020, https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/flipkart-founder-sachin-bansals-wife-files-dowry-harassment-case-51345 (Janu
ary 20, 2021).
it tightened foreign investment laws: Vindu Goel, “Amazon Users in India Will Get Less Choice and Pay More Under New Selling Rules,” New York Times, January 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/technology/amazon-walmart-flipkart-india.html (January 20, 2021).
“collectively launch a new movement against data colonization”: Manish Singh, “India’s Richest Man Is Ready to Take On Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart,” TechCrunch, December 31, 2019, https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/30/reliance-retail-jiomart-launch/ (January 20, 2021).
CHAPTER 4: A YEAR FOR EATING CROW
“I don’t know what to say about Amazon… until you make some money”: Steve Ballmer interviewed by Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose, 48:43, October 21, 2014, https://charlierose.com/videos/28129 (January 20, 2021).
DynamoDB: Werner Vogels, “A Decade of Dynamo: Powering the Next Wave of High-Performance, Internet Scale Applications,” All Things Distributed, October 2, 2017, https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2017/10/a-decade-of-dynamo.html (January 20, 2021); “Dynamo: Amazon’s Highly Available Key-Value Store,” https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo-sosp2007.pdf (January 20, 2021).
a 2006 Businessweek story: “Jeff Bezos’ Risky Bet,” Bloomberg Businessweek, November 13, 2006, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-11-12/jeff-bezos-risky-bet (January 20, 2021).
“good intentions don’t work, only mechanisms do”: “Maintaining a Culture of Builders and Innovators at Amazon,” Gallup, February 26, 2018, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231635/maintaining-culture-builders-innovators-amazon.aspx (January 20, 2021).
70 percent growth rate and 19.2 percent operating margin: “2015 Amazon.com Annual Report,” https://ir.aboutamazon.com/annual-reportsproxies-andshareholder-letters/default.aspx (March 10, 2021).