Who is he?
Bezos (born 1964) went from Texan ranch hand (for his grandfather) to quirky King of Cyber Commerce, as founder of Amazon.com.
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What’s the theory?
“Our vision,” he says, “is (to be) the world’s most customer-centric company.” He works from six core values: “customer obsession, ownership, bias for action, frugality, high hiring bar and innovation”. He championed one-click shopping, customer reviews and e-mail verification and showed a reckless disregard for profit while keeping overheads low. After spotting that internet usage was increasing by 2,300 per cent a year, D E Shaw’s youngest senior vice-president left to set up operations with his wife, MacKenzie, from a two-bedroom house in Seattle. Within months his online sales were worth more than $20,000 (£10,760) a week and soon branched out to CDs, videos, toys and even clothes, with sales of $7 billion by 2003.
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So he got his just reward?
Indeed. With his wealth estimated at more than $10 billion by 1999, mum and Cuban step-dad Bezos saw their $300,000 life savings increase to billions. He dodged “dotcom toast” predictions and was voted Time magazine’s Person of the Year at age 35, the fourth youngest to make the grade after a 25-year old Charles Lindbergh in 1927, our own Queen Elizabeth (then 26) and Martin Luther King (34) in 1963. He avoids wasteful outlay and although now based at a prestigious hilltop site, uses the original desks he made from cheap doors and metal brackets, “conserving money for things that matter”.
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Time to take it easy?
No. Not content with rising sales (MP3 players and digital cameras were hits at Christmas), Bezos plans to develop a sub-orbital space facility on his 165,000-acre ranch in Texas, to give Richard Branson a run for his money.
KAREN BAYNE