The Everything Store

[00:00:00] In 1995 at the dawn of the Internet era, a small online bookseller launched from a Seattle garage with a simple but audacious aim. To harness the web's explosive growth and build a store of unlimited selection. Guided by the unwavering drive of its founder, Jeff Bezos, the young company quickly expanded beyond books, pushing into music, movies, electronics and toys. Even as the dotcom bubble burst and skepticism mounted, Amazon refined its logistics, mastered its distribution networks, and pressed on. Its rise was hardly uncontested. Barnes and Noble challenged its claim to be the world's largest bookstore. eBay dominated online marketplaces.

[00:00:43] Walmart, the titan of physical retail prepared for battle. Yet Amazon's long-term thinking, willingness to experiment and unyielding customer focus allowed it to outmaneuver rivals again and again. Today, Amazon is no longer just a retailer, but a sprawling technology and services empire spanning cloud computing, digital devices, entertainment and global logistics. Its scale is so vast that the phrase to be Amazoned has entered the business vocabulary. It describes what happens when Amazon enters a market and rapidly absorbs customers, market share, and profits. This is the story of how one company's ambition transformed, not just retail, but the very expectations of an entire generation of consumers.

[00:01:29] Part one, Jeffrey. Jeff Bezos's first literary appearance was not in a business profile, but in a niche book about a pioneering program for gifted children in Houston. While touring his elementary school, the writer of that book was accompanied by sixth grader Jeff Bezos, whose intensity shone through at such a young age.