What I learned from reading Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire by Brad Stone.
Number one, his genius was not in inventing.
Rather, it was in inventing a system of invention.
Dozens of researchers and engineers and tinkerers labored beneath Edison in a carefully constructed hierarchical organization that he founded and oversaw.
Number two, it has always seemed strange to me the things that we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling, are the complements of failure in our system.
And those traits that we detest, sharpness, greed, meanness, egotism, and self interest, are the traits of success.
And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.
So those are two quotes that appear at the very beginning of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Amazon unbound, Jeff Bezos, and the invention of a global empire.
And it was written by Brad Stone.
This is a sequel to the everything stone.
So this is, are the everything stone, the everything store.
And this is part three in this miniature three part series that I'm doing on Jeff Bezos.
You don't have to listen to them in order, but it might be helpful if you do.
I think starting with the everything store before Amazon unbound makes a lot of sense because it does go in sequential order.
So a lot of what I found most interesting in the book and what I'm going to talk to you more about today is really there's a lot of quotes from Jeff Bezos that are occurring not only in public speeches, but also in, internally in the company.
And I think that's going to reveal a lot about how he thinks about building the company.
And the reason I wanted to start with those two quotes, one, both are from actually novels.
The first quote was from a fictional account of the race to electrify America, where Thomas Edison is obviously a central character in that.
And I want to start with a quote that Jeff Bezos says that could have easily come out of Thomas Edison's mouth over a hundred years ago.
And Jeff says, every interesting thing I've ever done, every important thing I've ever done, every beneficial thing I've ever done, has been through a cascade of experiments and mistakes and failures.
I'm covered in scar tissue as a result of this.