2000 Interview with Jeff Bezos

you can hear him coming a mile away how about the laugh it's something I've always had know it's unique in the family I embarrass them at movies you know the Dean of dot-coms Jeff Bezos has billions of reasons to be laughing your laugh is a beacon they know you're coming right the 35 year old founder and CEO of amazon.com is a billionaire eight times over all because he saw early on the power of those letters www-why dweeb the seattle-based detailer is the biggest store on the internet a store that loses a lot more money than it makes and thanks for coming all this way oh yeah I know it's a long trip recently I had the chance to speak one-on-one with this icon of the internet at amazon.com Seattle headquarters so you drive it out here and what 94 was it July of 94 when we arrived in Seattle and Jeff Bezos is driving out here going I'm gonna be a billionaire driving out here having gotten his parents to invest in the company telling them that it's very likely they'll lose their entire investment in the company and I thought that there was a 30% chance that we might build a successful company I never thought that we would build what amazon.com has turned into and I'm the most surprised person on the planet you're thinking of names right and you were thinking abracadabra yeah so the first name of the company was Cadabra Inc and it comes second half of abracadabra when I called the lawyer on a cell phone and said Cadabra Inc he said cadaver and didn't you know was pretty obvious that that wasn't a very good name but it is an article here an AP article Wall Street wonders will coms ever make money how will it make money are you gonna make money someday all companies have to make money someday in you know companies where we try to be the Earth's most customer centric company totally obsessing over the customer experience that means things like building more distribution centers hiring more people and offering more products all that investment is expensive but we think not to invest at this time would be incredibly short-sighted so the people out there that say jeez I do I want to put my money into a company that's not turning a profit well I think that's a very reasonable question to ask and I've always been very cautionary to especially small investors saying you know one thing to look at internet companies in general and amazon.com in particular is the volatility of the stock it's not new is it for our history as a publicly traded company our stocks been very volatile and I don't think that highly volatile stocks are necessarily good investments for small investors because one of the important criteria should be the ability to sleep soundly at night so you know I think people should be mindful that our song can easily be up 20% a day or down 20% a day or more Amazon fired a hundred and fifty people in January two percent of its workforce to cut down on costs last year a few employees complained publicly in a Washington Post article about what they said is excessive overtime and low pay at Amazon your response to that sweatshop accusation well it's and we're a very enlightened company and everybody at amazon.com gets health benefits dental benefits everybody has stock ownership everybody that we believe very strongly in a philosophy of ownership and people have done well at the company as a result of that what we're trying to do isn't easy and it's not for everybody that's for sure because when you're true when you're trying to invent something completely new and build a lasting company it's meant to be hard on the personal side Jeff Bezos and his wife Mackenzie are having their first child and I read you guys are expecting we are yeah we're gonna have baby boy coming up in March have you thought of a name no not yet we're toying around with a few different names but but we haven't settled on anything don't use Cadabra okay so what are some of your favorite websites I mean besides the ones you guys are connected with Star Trek you must like that or there well so first of all I have to do the paid promotional announcement yeah here we go we'll start the and I really do love home grocery calm I found a website one time that bills itself as the web's oldest and best place to buy meteorites and I like you know so that some of these small websites are absolutely charming and wonderful to use and look at it's from the Ural Mountains it's sixty thousand years old just six years ago a lot of people thought Jeff Bezos was crazy why would people want to buy books over the internet now you can buy anything over the web check out the sixty thousand year old bear skeleton that Bezos bought on Amazon's auction site smile six years ago some people laughed at his idea but look who's laughing now I can guarantee you you wouldn't be able to do this with Lee Iacocca

Channel: king5evening

Views: 67,522

Keywords: eMag, Evening Magazine, KING TV, Seattle, Amazon.com (Venture Funded Company), business, interview, Jeff Bezos (Organization Leader)

Id: MvuJCeV3K0o

Length: 5min 29sec (329 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2015