Here are 14 little-known facts about the early days of Amazon, which shouldn't be called that
When Amazon was launched on July 16, 1995 as a simple online bookstore, its founder Jeff Bezos had a vision for the company's explosive growth and its dominance over e-commerce. He knew from the start that he wanted Amazon to be "a store for everything."
Recently, Jeff Bezos announced that he was stepping down as CEO after 26 years and tens of billions of dollars in earnings. In his 2013 book on Amazon's Origins, author Brad Stone paints a picture of where the company started out and how it grew into the juggernaut it is today.
'Amazon' was not the original name of the company
Jeff Bezos originally wanted to give the company the magically sounding name of "Cadabra".
Amazon's first lawyer, Todd Tarbert, convinced him the name sounded too much like "corpse," especially over the phone. (Jeff Bezos also favored the name “Relentless.” If you visit Relentless.com today, you are redirected to Amazon).
He ultimately chose "Amazon" because he liked the company to be named after the world's largest river, hence the original company logo.
In Amazon's early days, a bell rang in the office every time someone made a purchase and everyone gathered to see if they knew the customer.
It was only a few weeks before the bell rang so frequently that they had to turn it off. From the first month of its launch, Amazon had already sold books across all 50 US states and in 45 different countries.
Lichen book saved Amazon from bankruptcy
Book distributors were demanding retailers like Amazon order 10 books at a time, and Amazon didn't yet need such a large stock (or didn't have that much money).
So the team discovered a loophole: they ordered a book they needed, and nine copies of an obscure lichen book, which was still out of stock.
Amazon started out in Jeff Bezos' garage. In its early days, the entrepreneur held his meetings in a Barnes & Noble bookstore
In Amazon's infancy, the servers the company used required so much power that Jeff Bezos and his wife couldn't run a hair dryer or vacuum around the house without blowing a fuse.
Jeff Bezos expected his employees to work at least 60 hours per week. The idea of work-life balance did not exist
One of the first employees worked so tirelessly for eight months - going back and forth between work on a bicycle very early in the morning and very late at night - that he completely forgot about the blue station wagon he had parked near his. apartment.
He never had time to read his mail, and when he finally did, he found a handful of parking tickets, a towing notice for his car, a few warnings from the towing company, and a message. final stating that his car had been auctioned.
It was in 1998 that Amazon experienced its first intense Christmas period.
The company was sorely understaffed. Each employee had to take an exhausting service in distribution centers to fulfill orders. They brought their friends and family and often slept in their cars before going to work the next day.
After that, Amazon vowed that it would never run out of manpower to meet holiday demand again, which is why Amazon is hiring so many seasonal workers today.
When eBay entered the scene, Amazon tried to launch its own auction site to face the competition.
The idea failed, but Jeff Bezos himself liked it. He bought the skeleton of an Ice Age cave bear for $ 40,000 (33,000 euros) and displayed it in the lobby of the company's headquarters. Next to it was a sign that said "Please don't feed the bear". He is still present today.
Jeff Bezos liked to work really fast which often created chaos, especially in Amazon fulfillment centers.
Amazon suffered from severe growth problems in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Facilities were closed for hours due to widespread blackouts, stacks of product were ignored by employees, and there was no preparation. for new product categories.
When the kitchen category was introduced, knives without protective wrapping were going full speed on the conveyor belt. It was extremely dangerous.
In early 2002, Jeff Bezos introduced the concept of 'two pizza' meetings
Employees had to be organized in groups of less than ten people - the perfect number to be satisfied with two pizzas for dinner - and had to work independently. Teams had to set strict goals, with equations to measure their success. These equations were called "fitness functions," and it was by following these goals that Jeff Bezos managed his teams.
"Communication is a sign of dysfunction", according to the billionaire. "It means people don't work together in a tight and organic way. We should try to find a way for teams to communicate less with each other, and not more." Many employees hated "two pizza meetings", especially the stress of fitness duties.
Unhappy customers can email Jeff Bezos directly, who will forward the message to the right person, adding a dreaded: '?'
“When Amazon employees receive an email with a question mark from Jeff Bezos, they react as if they've discovered a time bomb. They usually have a few hours to fix the problem reported by the CEO and prepare. an in-depth explanation of how it happened, a response that will be reviewed by a succession of managers before the response is presented to the CEO. Such escalations, as these emails are called, are the way for Jeff Bezos to ensure that the voice of the customer is constantly heard within the company, ”writes Brad Stone in his book.
Before Google's 'Street View', Amazon had created 'Block View'
In 2004, Amazon launched a search engine, A9.com. The A9 team launched a project called Block View, a sort of visual yellow pages, which would combine photographs of street-level stores and restaurants with their listings in A9's search results. With a budget of less than 100,000 dollars (83,000 euros), Amazon sent photographers to 20 major cities where they rented vehicles to start taking pictures of restaurants.
Amazon finally ditched Block View in 2006, and Google didn't launch Street View until 2007.
Amazon Employees Encouraged To Make 'Primal Cries' As A Therapeutic Release During High Tension Holiday Season
Amazon is hiring seasonal workers, but the holiday season is still extremely stressful for logistics teams.
In the early 2000s, Jeff Wilke, Amazon's COO, would let anyone or team who accomplished an important goal close their eyes, lean back, and yell at him on the phone at the top of their lungs. Jeff Wilke told Brad Stone that some of the primary screams almost blew up his speakers.
Amazon fulfillment centers have had issues with working conditions from the start, and many unhappy workers have found ways to rebel
One day, an employee who was about to resign jumped onto the fulfillment center conveyor belt and happily walked the entire facility.
One of the craziest stories, however, may well date back to 2006 and concerns an interim worker at a Kansas fulfillment center:
"He would show up at the start of his shift and leave at the end of it, but he never logged any hours in between. It took at least a week for someone to find out what was going on. : He had dug a tunnel inside a huge pile of empty wooden pallets. Completely out of sight, he had used Amazon products to make a bed, tore pictures from books to line his makeshift walls, and stole food to snack on. When discovered, he was (unsurprisingly) fired. "
'Fiona' was the original code name for Kindle
The Kindle takes its original name from a book by Neal Stephenson called "The Diamond Age". It's a novel set in the future and tells the story of an engineer who steals a rare interactive manual to give to his knowledge-hungry daughter Fiona. The team that worked on the Kindle prototypes thought of this fictitious manual as a template for the device they were working on.
The team eventually begged Jeff Bezos to keep Fiona's name, but he went with another suggestion, Kindle, because it brought up the idea of starting a fire.
Jeff Bezos was a demanding boss and could explode in front of employees. Rumor has it he hired a leadership coach to help calm him down
Jeff Bezos was known for his explosive or sarcastic responses to employees if he wasn't happy with what they brought him. He was said to have hired a leadership coach to try and control his harsh evaluations.
Here is an excerpt from Brad Stone's book:
"During a momentous reunion, Jeff Bezos berated [Diane] Lye and her colleagues in his usual, devastating fashion, telling them they were stupid and should 'be back in a week when you get the hang of it. you do. ”Then he took a few steps, froze in the middle of the room as if something had suddenly occurred to him, turned on his heel and added,“ But good job everyone. ” .
