Amazon.com: Get Big Fast

Two caveats to this book upfront: it was published in 2000 and the author didn't have a lot of insight from Amazon insiders. He has interviewed some former employees, but Bezos and others refused to be interviewed saying that it is way to early in company history. The book also focuses on the US history of the company and mentions the international expansion very briefly.Apart from this the book is good: well structured, engaging, full of details about early days of Amazon. It is fascinating to read that in the beginning Amazon was worried about Borders more than Barnes&Noble - at the same time as Borders is going through the bankruptcy procedure in 2011. Lots of books of this kind whizz through the early days and describe the company once it is formed and is successful - the question I always have is how did they get there. This book sheds a lot of light on this. It's a fascinating read for someone who is doing their own start-up. You will learn that Amazon didn't start as a logistics company (which is now its competitive advantage), in fact it was learning by doing - and they made a lot of mistakes and did a few pivots.The book also gives a lot of insight on the roots of Amazon culture (if you are interested in working there).I am looking forward to Jeff Bezos autobiography one day, but at the moment this book is a really good read about what happened when it all got started.

Good Book, I advice for business students

Very good book if somebody wants to understand how it has begun with Amazon and Jeff Bezos. However it doesn't give you much about technical stuff and figures etc. It is more like a novel.

Funny that you're reading a review of Amazon.com on Amazon.com.The author had access to a number of key players in the startup phase of the firm. He uses this to great effect, giving us a very clear and you-are-there feel to the startup phase of the firm. There are great stories about looking for cheap office space, engineers trying to create software that will be robust but also deliver it on time so they can have customers, trying to get funding when nobody knows who you are and nobody understands your business plan (what the heck is this Internet anyway?). Having surived a different startup around the same time, writing Perl code to deliver products on the web, all the trials and tribulations that Amazon went through feel very authentic and real.This is bar none the best book on the Amazon.com startup phase. This would've garnered 5 stars.Unfortunately, the book relies less on first-hand players and more on press releases and public knowledge after the IPO phase. In fact, the author starts one chapter with the following apology: "The following reads like a shopping because it is a shopping list." The chaper is devoted to the post-IPO shopping spree where Amazon bought various other Internet startups, most of which bombed.In addition, the latter chapters lack the insight and analysis that made the earlier chapters a joy to read. For example, how could a corporate culture of fanatical thriftness spent so much cash on acquisitions that went nowhere? Why save a few dollars on eliminating free aspirin when the company is shoving hundreds of millions of dollars on pie-in-the sky ventures like Pets.com? It's not like this wasn't overlooked. The author lavishly details both the thriftness and the overspending, but never attempts to reconcile the two. There are other examples like this in the latter chapters, which reads more like a litany of press releases rather than a compelling story with insight and analysis that made the earlier chapters so gripping. Thus the 4 stars.Lastly, by the time you read this book, Amazon.com has grown into new directions beyond what the book portrays. It's a good overview of the startup phase, adequate beyond the IPO phase up to about the year 2000 to the beginnings of the NASDAQ meltdown, but not beyond it.

This is a very good book on one of today's leading companies in the world. Amazon.com truly is a company that formed a new industry and changed the way we live.I have a lot of admiration for Jeff Bezos and the hard work he put into making amazon.com what it is today.My only complaint is that I felt the book was cut too short. That is because amazon.com has grown so much in the past 9 years that this book was written and it is time for an updated book.Overall, this is a great book for someone who wants to know about the roots of amazon.com and how it all began.