Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos management style revealed in new book

when Jeff Bezos launched Amazon in 1994 it was an online book retailer but nearly 20 years later there are a few things Amazon doesn't sell bloomberg businessweek senior writer Brad Stone has covered the company for 15 years he is the author new book the everything stored Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon welcome Thank You charlie we all know Amazon so tell us what you've learned about Jeff and what makes him tick you know he's he's clearly one of the most remarkable CEOs and business right now what makes him tick I'm what he would say is is the customer you know given the customer everything they want and and being all things and the customer these days isn't just the consumer the shopper but it's startups that want to run their businesses on Amazon services and developers the thing that impresses me about him is that he's always been willing to plow the money back into the company and take risk and do new thing rather than worrying about the quarterly stock bro absolutely and I found that up and down across Amazon history back in the early days when they were you know given away free shipping on Harry Potter books today where they're discounting all sorts of products your book is full of such rich reporting about his management style he has 90,000 employees and yet you say he's involved in every little detail how so well I write you'd almost call it Steve Jobs Ian right because his standards are so high and he just doesn't tolerate anything less than excellence he spends most of his time I believe on the newer businesses like the Kindle and the Kindle Fire but he has this incredible ability to disperse his time across all Amazon's businesses and to Aude it very selectively so one thing I write about is how he'll send questionmark evils to employees just when it gets a sense that some part of the business isn't working well his his email address is public - - anybody uses Amazon it's Jeff at amazon.com he responds to those four words them as you say with just a question mark Tim to managers but what about his style I mean you say some of Jeff Bezos is greatest hits about when he walks into a meeting and he's not happy we made them into a graphic but he says are you lazy or just incompetent this is to some of his managers I'm sorry did I take my stupid pills today and do I need to go down and get the certificate that says I'm CEO of the company that get you to stop challenging me on this Wow pretty tough of course and I think there are going to be employees at a lot of technology companies that are familiar with that style and maybe it's something they have to do you know to keep people motivated and innovating every single day now I will say that some of those greatest hits you know probably a couple years old I think he's gotten better over time but he's still tough there's also what he does when he's coming into a meeting and have you prepare you have to read a memo so that everybody is on the same page I don't know that any other company does this but they don't start meeting today Amazon with PowerPoint presentations or speeches everybody sits down and quietly reviews a six page document called a narrative which is how Jeff actually prefers to process information how does he deal with complaints from customers well as we said he he doesn't tolerate them they'll send those question mark emails he'll respond he you know he doesn't like to see any customer dissatisfied and what does he share say with Steve Jobs Bill Clinton and investigative reporter that you did right well so there's this small section of the book which is actually about Jeff's biological father now you know jeff has some amazing pair of amazing parents I've met them Jackie and Mike but as it turns out like you know incredibly like so many other leaders he has this very peculiar situation he didn't know his biological father man named Ted Jorgensen who I tracked down who runs a bike shop outside of Phoenix and who incredibly didn't even know that his son was Jeff Bezos Wow and what did he say he was surprised he had lost track of the family when when Jeff was three and then he wanted to get back in touch and I thought this story was so fascinating because Jeff Bezos was he is and then Steve Jobs also did not know his own biological father so what's happened to this story as it come full circle you know Ted wrote Jeff a note Jeff responded it's pretty much as far as I know but there has been some contact well Brad stone thank you really enjoyed the book a lot of great details in here the everything store goes on sale tomorrow

Channel: CBS Mornings

Views: 21,498

Keywords: bezos, amazon, biography, ceo, leader, difficult, abusive, tough, bio, bloomberg, management, jeff bezos, video, videos, cbsnews.com video, cbs news video

Id: yDyIpEG4_ow

Length: 4min 10sec (250 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 14 2013