Invent and Wander

Do the right thing.

With Amazon at 1.6 trillion dollars and Bezos the richest man on earth there is no disputing that Jeff Bezos wins many prizes. He has helped create something that most everyone with an internet account has used to conveniently enjoy the wonders of ecommerce and web services (he even owns Goodreads here, kudos). For pioneering he deserves our thanks and applause, his humility as the son of a high-school mom and immigrant dad shine through. Thank you, Jeff. Winning, however, is not the goal: a better world is.

John D Rockefeller also won and his relative wealth in his day was three times that of Bezos's today. Rockefeller won by a strategy of horizontal domination, selling below cost in many cases to beat competitors and consolidating his winnings in adjacent markets. An interesting game that few have the money or market dominance to execute.

In 1911 it took the US Supreme Court to intervene and ultimately break up Standard Oil into 34 smaller companies. Many of these are companies that have thrived for a century now and ones we still know like Chevron, Exxon, Texaco, Marathon Oil, and BP among others.

At 1.6 trillion in market value and 1.1 million employees Amazon has no equal. Here is where the games can diverge: Jeff Bezos can, and should, decide to again Invent & Wander. Instead of waiting for the US Court, executives or legislators, or the EU, or India, or other world powers to one-day intervene, just do it. Jeff should boldy act to unlock value for customers, shareholders, and employees: split the pie and everybody wins.

Bezos and his teams could choose to break Amazon into 10 (or 34) smaller companies. He could do it on his own terms before regulators one day inevitably force his hand: that would begin day two. And in so splitting and multiplying this would enable more innovation and competition in multiple industry verticals and geographies.

Unlock the captive value of Whole Foods by thinking how to help spawn a focused lower cost healthy grocery options to offer more people more affordable organic foods. Spur on the innovation in green power and alternative vehicles, not just by buying 100,000 Rivian vehicles for Amazon: boldly go further and help the world by spinning out a focused entity to deliver 1,000,000 electric vehicles a year to consumers and other businesses.

In web services, clean energy, and so many other spaces Amazon and Bezos hold the potential to help more by controlling less and empowering others with more competitive multiple points of focus the world needs.

To date, Jeff Bezos you are my hero, you have delivered so much for me and for our world. If you read this, please don't read in criticism where none is intended. Instead this only ask is that you long ponder the thought.

What you now hold most is the chance to help decentralize and distribute the magic of human invention by passing this one baton to create so many more that can take your spark and again Invent and Wander on profound new and multiple dimensions.

Thing about it, please. In every other game, you have all but one. And there can be no "one" in truly winning.

4 people found this helpful

Nothing new. Not even a real book.

Nothing new. The “book” contains only the public available bezos letters (letters sent every year to the stock investors) and extracts of speeches of bezos that could be also found on YouTube (and would be better to listen them from the original speech I YouTube than from the reader of this book).

3 people found this helpful

Very disappointing

What a complete disappointment. Part one was merely a reading of every years annual shareholder letter. Part two was filled with a dozen stories that were told two and three times over. It was a complete waste of time.

2 people found this helpful

Narration of Shareholer letters?

Even though this is a "collection of writings", It appears to be just a reading of shareholder letters all of which you can read for yourself in the annual statements. The author should have cited in the audio where the information came from. Sorry but, in my opinion, not worth the price of admission.

2 people found this helpful

SKIP! Why was half of the book something I can read on Amazon’s website?

This book was WAY too repetitive. Also, this book had nothing to do with Harvard Review or Harvard. Just published by them.

1 person found this helpful

Disappointed

I love Jeff Bezos and the Amazon company. However, the book was a combination of past letters and species. There was no nothing new. if you want to save time and money to read this book, simply read all the letters that Jeff Bezos wrote to the shareholders meeting all the way up to 2020. I think that if you read the Wikipedia page from Amazon and from Jeff Bezos, you will have the same information contained in this book. It's not that it's a bad book, is that I expected something original and not past letters and past speeches. I do not recommend this book.

1 person found this helpful

Great insights, just too repetitive

There’s an inherent problem with publishing a collection of writings, and it’s that those writings usually aren’t all that cohesive. At least not nearly as cohesive as a fully thought-out manuscript would be. That problem is exactly what plagues this one and prevents it from being great.

Don’t get me wrong, Bezos’ insights are awesome and fun to read about. I loved hearing the early stories of creating and growing Amazon and some of the trials and tribulations along the way. What I didn’t love, however, was hearing the same stories over and over again.

While there’s definitely some solid story-telling and excitement here, I can’t help but feel that the repetitiveness of it curtails that excitement a little too much.

Though it would appear that some folks felt a bit duped by this one, I feel like the cover told us everything we needed to know about it and, as such, I’m not mad. Regardless, I still would’ve expected a bit more from a duo as great as Bezos and Isaacson.

-Brian Sachetta
Author of “Get Out of Your Head”

1 person found this helpful

Majority of this book is word by word repetition

I felt that this book was broken at times after hearing the same sentences (word by word) time and time again. Quite frustrating and mediocre really.
For example Jeff’s long walk with his (former) boss, in Central Park was narrated at least five times. So much I can quote it “it’s a good idea Jeff but it would be a better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job”

1 person found this helpful

Great listen and valuable insights

Really enjoyed this book. Packed with great insights and stories!! Highly recommended this book for anyone.

1 person found this helpful

Terrible....

If you just want to hear an annual report, Listen to Warren Buffett's. Much more interesting and entertaining. For a company whose number one priority is suppose to be the consumer this is a terrible product.