Jeff Bezos: "Nerd of the Amazon" | 60 Minutes Archive

60 Minutes rewind who would have guessed that one of the hottest stocks of all time one of the fastest growing companies in history would be a bookstore that's right books one of the oldest products made by man we didn't that's because we didn't predict the revolution led by 35-year-old Jeff Bezos a self-described nerd who almost overnight has become one of the richest men in the world and made many of his invest tors instant millionaires that's because his Revolution created a new way of buying things by computer over the internet and we have been lining up by the millions he calls his company amazon.com Earth's biggest bookstore you can't drop by not in person anyway for the customer Amazon exists only on the computer screen but Bezos does have an office so we wangled an invitation and where's Amazon's headquarters the public relations people told us to come to 15162 Avenue between Pike and Pine in Seattle but when we passed the pawn shop and the porno parlor the wig store and the down Market Teriyaki joint we didn't see anything that looked vaguely Cutting Edge no corporate drives or office Towers just a heroin needle exchange and an old building called Columbia but it had the number 1516 so we walked inside and there it was the logo known to every web Shopper in the world upstairs it doesn't look very high-tech either more like a college dorm than a corporate headquarters and then there's the boss you generally hear him before you see him it's the earpiercing laugh of billionaire Jeff Bezos now I've heard a lot about your desk it's a door with 4x4s come on what I mean you can afford a better desk than that it's a symbol yeah of spending money on things that matter to customers and not spending money on things that don't and you don't need clean carpets what are these things on the floor uh well these are um these are you know sticky balls they're obviously they work yeah yeah that's great that's very impressive remember this man is a Titan of our time a giant what kind of kid were you well it it I was a good student I always worked really hard I was nerdy you were nerdy I was nerdy that hasn't changed by the way did you realize it back then my Watch updates itself from the atomic clock 36 times a day if that gives you any indication really I'm afraid so but you did really well huh in school yeah I was always is a good student Bezos went to a montauri school when he was three by third grade teachers knew he was gifted a year later he started playing with computers in high school he was valedictorian of his graduating class socially socially uh I was a little awkward I think would be one way to put it blind dates uh not until I didn't really date much until like my last year of college which was which was at Princeton M actually I set up sort of a formal plan to date I'll had all my friends set me up on blind dates none of them worked out very well maybe it was his intensity or maybe it was the way he talks listen to the way he describes his company's business plan we believe that this is a critical category formation time Bezos uses the same kind of Wall Street won talk when he talks or thinks about almost anything including what he wants out of life the way I made the decision to leave Wall Street and do this was you know it sound geeky to you but um it was a regret minimization framework so this is how I actually made if I understand it if I can translate that into English I can deal with does that mean um I want to live my life so that in a few decades from now I'm not going to regret it that's exactly right uh I want to have lived my life in such a way that when I'm 80 years old I've minimized the number of regrets that I have and I think actually a lot of people do that I think they even if they don't you know call it something as dorky as regret minimization framework they they behave that way anyway they think that way and but for you it was not carpedm it was not wine women and song no no no no I I don't go in for carpedm I go in for regret minimization framework absolutely when Bezos left that Wall Street job in 1994 he followed that old American edict Go West Young man he and his wife didn't know where they were going in fact the movers packed their things and were already on the road when Bezos phoned them to say he had decided on Seattle his other big decision books sell books not in stores but over the Internet The company took off like a rocket did you read the times this morning New York Times yeah I saw I saw the times this morning at one point on Friday amazon.com's total stock market value surged past $30 billion making it worth more than a major Industrial company like Texico that didn't blow your mind when you read it well I think if you're asking for sort of an emotional response I think it's it's it's very humbling and it creates a sense of responsibility according to my calculations you yourself are worth somewhere in the vicinity of N9 or1 billion today I only say that because I've got a follow-up question okay what's with the Honda this is a perfectly good car in July of 1995 from this modest ranch house outside Seattle bezo sold his first book today he has five huge warehouses in the United States and Europe packed not only with books but with CDs and movies last year Amazon sold more than $600 Million worth of merchandise over the Internet local final that's you c93 is coming back and the stock if you'd bought a $1,000 worth of Amazon stock in 1997 it would be worth between 30 and $60,000 today Bruce Smith is an analyst for Jeff and Company in New York is this investing or is it gambling uh right now with the frenzy we've had to me it feels much more like gambling because it's crazy well I don't I don't find it rational to be honest with you it went up almost a th% last year when have you seen anything comparable nothing but there are huge risks the Internet is real real money is being spent it's not going to stop but what you could have is a decline in these stocks of 50 75% but investors keep flooding in why Amazon snagged almost 2 million new customers at the end of last year and like other internet companies it's growing much faster than those old Blue Chips example internet giant Yahoo is worth more on paper than the total value of Kmart Hilton Hotels and Delta Airlines combined call it the Revenge of the Nerds the computer nerds and the fastest moving titles are over here well here's Stephen King there's Daniel Steel sexual McCarthyism there you go title of the day there's no dress code and no hair color code in a place the customer will never see the Amazon warehouse computers do everything here Australia Japan Japan California customers generally get their books very quickly but you can't do this you know you you can't touch the book you can't hear The Binding Creek you can't smell the paper and it's a great smell and it is and and I and that's why it's a very different experience with his computers Bezos used to sell a lot of computer books to computer nerds these days the Amazon goes everywhere in the last hour the bestselling book at amazon.com has been the greatest Generation by Tom broko you think we're going to put that on television I don't know it'll be a test of your credibility the story will continue after this a while ago I bought a few books from Amazon this time after I logged on the computer greeted me back welcoming me by name is this you that's you that's me okay the computer also remembered my past orders and after comparing me with other customers who bought the same books it calculated which new books I might like to buy the Untouchable the comfort of strangers death and summer breakfast on Pluto I married a communist that's awfully good I mean Franklin that's very good cuz I've already bought two of those books in bookstores that's because people who have your same sort of buying profile that electronic soulmate this is scary I've read a lot of these books and bought many of the others now every time I use your website you learn more about me yes one of your employees have said that you collect half a gigabyte whatever that is of information on your customers every day that's about 350 floppy discs worth what do you do with that information that's the data that allows us to predict or try to predict what you know what books and videos and music that you would like that you don't that you haven't discovered yet all of that data information about the likes and dislikes of millions of customers is stored here on well-guarded Ultra secret dust-free and very expensive computers Bezos refuses to rule out selling the valuable information to other companies in the future but he doesn't think his customers are concerned about the issue and Wall Street isn't concerned that Amazon has never made a profit not a dive in fact it lost $125 million last year the company says it's investing for the future Skeptics say it would have to sell every book being sold in the world today to justify its stock price I think my generation grew up with Sears and Amazon is worth 20% more than Sears is worth in market capitalization how do you view that phenomenon that Amazon today is worth more than Sears investors are focused on the future Amazon has growth potential that Sears doesn't a couple of Geeks Who sketched out some software could destroy Sears Rob book that's the beauty of technology and the microprocessor we've never seen anything like it but his has seen revolutions before one thing supp planting another could Amazon and its tributaries be flowing towards the shopping mall and eventually drown it out if you were running Walmart today would you feel threatened by Amazon absolutely would you decide to go after them absolutely as a matter of fact they already are Walmart is suing Amazon for hiring away some of its top Executives as for Barnes & Noble its stock is worth much less than Amazon's but in a down and dirty negative ad campaign Barnes & Noble is reminding readers it has many more books to offer than Amazon it's getting really nasty out there it seems to me the online bookstore the bonds & Noble bookstore is so big it makes amazon.com look tiny seems to me that this is almost a declaration of war well it's not just Barnes & Noble but one of the things Walmart is suing you that's right and you're surrounded by enemies people want to get you establishment is big and powerful do you ever get scared well I tell people around here to wake up petrified and afraid every morning do you I do but if Bezos has a case of the Jitters he wasn't showing it last month he was throwing his annual masquerade ball for the 2100 Amazon employees he calls his fellow entrepreneurs his fellow nerds behind their masks they're worth millions of dollars thanks to generous stock options as for Bezos on paper he's worth more than Ross perau rert Murdoch even David Rockefeller it is not uncommon for people who have achieved the kind of startling success you have in such a short period of time develop a pretty strong fear about losing it all are you afraid of that I know we can lose it all it's not a fear it's a fact

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 64,955

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News

Id: 8OsY1V3iN6E

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 05 2024