Jeff Bezos' Goal: "Earth's Biggest Selection"
Jeff Bezos. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.
(p. 18) You're a longtime science buff who studied electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton. Why did you want to be a bookseller in the first place?
You have to go back in time to 1994, and there's something very unusual about the book category. There are more items in the book category than there are items in any other product category. One of the things it was obvious you could do with an online store is have a much more complete selection.
Initially, Amazon sold books exclusively, but it has since expanded into a retail omnivore that sells basketballs and vacuum cleaners and hamster food and everything under the sun. What is your goal, exactly?
We want to have earth's biggest selection. Earth's biggest river, earth's biggest selection.
For the full interview, see:
DEBORAH SOLOMON. "QUESTIONS FOR Jeffrey P. Bezos; Book Learning." The New York Times, Magazine Section (Sun., December 6, 2009): 18.
(Note: bold in original, to indicate questions by Deborah Solomon.)
(Note: the online version of the interview is dated December 2, 2009.)
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