What I learned from The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone.
In January 2013, eight months before her death, I received a lengthy email from Joy Covey.
She had been generous with her memories and insights as I crafted the first few chapters of this book and was wondering how my writing was progressing.
She was reading the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and was thinking about how Bezos leadership style compared to the late Apple co founders famously direct demeanor.
When I rediscovered Cobys email after her death, I was struck by its thoughtfulness and eloquence.
Here it is, lightly edited for clarity.
Hello Brad, I have been wondering how your writing is coming along.
Also, I thought of your project and Jeff.
While beginning the jobs biography recently, I found myself thinking about what it takes to accomplish things as big as they both did.
When a lot of what you are doing is unconventional, it may very well be that the absolute intensity of drive and focus is essential and incompatible with all the nice management thought about consensus and gentle demeanor.
I think about how effective and quick Jeff was and how important it was that he didn't slow down too much or modify his ideas to make others feel comfortable.
I think about the early days and the level of clarity, vision, potential, and values that Jeff brought.
And then I look at Amazon today and reflect on some of those conversations I had with him in the intervening years.
It's easy to draw a straight line from the vision he had back then to the Amazon of today.
I don't know any other company that has created such a juggernaut that is so consistent with the original ideas of the founder.
It's almost like he fired an arrow and then followed that arc.
Can we really think of any other company approaching Amazon's size or age that continues to move forward with the boldness, risk taking, innovation, and the long term perspective that Amazon shows?
Jeff's clarity, intensity of focus and ability to prioritize is unusual and behind his ability to keep leaping forward versus protecting existing ground.
Seeing the future, he put in place the critical DNA that would help the whole company embody his vision.
His focus was on very bright, high growth potential and fluid minded people with the right values.
As builders.