The Everything Store

I really enjoyed Brad Stone's The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. Anyone who wants to better understand the dynamics of disruption or just gain a better understanding of the website we've come to love, must read this book.

I read 1 year ago The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone and I had just started my own business. Most books you read about American entrepreneurs are so inspirational and it makes it seen so easy to work for a startup. This book shows you however the flaws of the leader, the leader and the business's weak moments, the principles of frugality, the way he celebrated his team but also split with some of them, the tough decisions. Some of these really inspired me on how to move further and I got some nice and highly applicable ideas from the book.

One of my favorite books is The Everything Store, which is the story of Amazon. I really, really like company biographies. They're just kind of the style of book that I've gotten really into.

If you're interested in high tech as a career path then I'd recommend a series of case studies around the development of products / founding of companies. Here are 5 examples:

• Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (1981)
• Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan (1996)
• Show Stopper by G Pascal Zachary (1994)
• The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator by Randall Stross (2013)
• The Everything Store by Brad Stone (2014)

These books all tell the tale of starting a company or building a product and despite covering a time span of 30+ years and multiple generations of technology the remarkable thing is just how very, very similar they are. While the technology changes, the process of creating something from whole cloth doesn't. That's a great lesson for people to learn.

My favourite business book is likely The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. It is full of great wisdom and learnings from the building of Amazon. It’s both informative and entertaining. I think it is a must read for anyone starting a business in tech.

This was an amazing glimpse into one of the most disruptive companies in history as well as the past and future trajectory of e-commerce and retail. It is also a testament to unwavering self-belief. The thing that impressed me the most is that Jeff Bezos intentionally built an entire department dedicated to making his primary business obsolete which allowed him to take the lead in the next development, e-books. His foresight is extraordinary and he is an inspirational big thinker.

Amazon is going to rule the world unless governments decide to break them up. It just makes sense to understand the most powerful company on the planet. Also, there is a (small) chance that Amazon sets up HQ2 in my hometown (Pittsburgh).

If I read a biography by a business titan or prime mover and he/she recommends a particular title, I would read it next. For example, I found out about Sam Walton's biography from Jeff Bezos quotes in The Everything Store by Brad Stone. They're both great books to read if you're in eCommerce or Retail, answering your earlier question.

I love to read biographies and stories of companies. Hatching Twitter is a really good book, and if you’re into that sort of books, bios of Steve Jobs (by Isaacson) or Jeff Bezos are great too.