Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Had His Top Execs Read These Three Books
At the beginning of the week I flew up to Seattle for a rare on-camera interview with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for CNBC. (You can view the full interview here.) The occasion: He's unveiling Amazon's newest line of Kindle Fire tablets, including the new Fire HD at $139, and the Fire HDX at $229 and $379.
As usual with this kind of sit-down with a singular character like Bezos, some of the most fun moments came outside of the obvious news. As we sat down and got wired up for the interview, for example, the sound technician was trying to get people in the hallway to quiet down. Bezos joked that he's the last person who can complain, since he's so... expressive himself.
It got to the point, he said, where growing up his brother and sister refused to go to the movies with him. "They said I laughed too loud," he told me. "I can't help it."
The guy's got plenty to be happy about. Amazon stock has been on a tear this year, up about 22%, which makes Bezos's 19% stake in the company worth about $5 billion more than it was in December. (Probably better than your portfolio.)
Another thing Bezos can't help, apparently, is his love for the printed word.
Amazon got started as a book retailer, then practically created the e-book market. Last month Bezos bought the Washington Post (a newspaper company!) for a quarter billion dollars, or two weeks worth of Amazon stock gains, depending how you count it.
But my favorite detail from the Bezos interview? This summer he spent time at Lab126, a Silicon Valley outpost about a mile from Apple headquarters where Amazon engineers hash out hardware designs. And he also hosted three all-day book clubs with Amazon's top executives, capped by nice dinners at the end. Bezos said he used the books as frameworks for sketching out the future of the company.
Which books? Bezos was kind enough to share the titles.
- The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
- The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen
- The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
They are, of course, available on Amazon.
Photo: Steve Jurvetson / Flickr
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8yInteresting books... all excellent and classics in their respective areas. Clearly Amazon are on further innovation pathways
User Interface Consultant at Tata Consultancy Services
9yI have Idea For increase Amazon Business Approx 20% in World Wide mostly in India
Management Consultant & Theory of Constraints Practitioner , Pursuing a happy and meaningful life
9yI am being a Theory of constraints practitioner, who focuses on services sector become happy when I read this. I use an integrated framework for my consulting which is a combination of TOC, Lean and Peter Drucker's principles and now I am adding Prof Clayton's thought into that framework.
Head- Operations (HUL, GSK,Abinbev,Mondeleze)
10ygood advice to employees. I read " GOAL" by Eliyahu Goldratt and recommend every one. You are as week as your weakest link/joint . Definitely will grab the other two books shortly.
President @ Entrepreneurial Consulting | IT Strategy, Program Management
10yA couple other books to consider for business folks is Execution Charan/Bossidy....How to get thing done...And a more recent book which I would recommend is the The Second Machine Age Brynjolfsson/McAfee a perspective on were we are headed ...both to me are must reads