the rise of the independent commercial Internet
service providers, large numbers of ordinary people
had Internet access. The development of the World
Wide Web and graphical browsers made using the
Internet far less intimidating.
Bezos was the youngest senior executive at the fi-
nancial firm D. E. Shaw when he saw the commercial
potential of these changes. Before the Internet age,
starting a retail sales business inevitably meant major
investments in hardware and facilities. However, if
one’s “store” were a site on the World Wide Web, one
would need space only for warehousing and for ful-
filling orders. Furthermore, one would no longer be
limited to a set number of physical locations: The
store could be accessed from any place that boasted
an Internet connection and at any time.
In order to develop his business plan, Bezos stud-
ied mail-order companies. A visit to the American
Booksellers Association annual conference earned
him valuable connections and information. He left
D. E. Shaw and moved to Seattle, where he could
find a large number of people with technical
experence. Working from the garage of a rented
home, he set up the first Amazon.com Web site and
went online as a bookseller in 1995.
Within a year, established booksellers were taking
notice of this start-up, and in 1997 Amazon.com
went public. However, Bezos remained a warm, per-
sonable man even as the success of his company
made him wealthy. This approachability has distin-
guished him from other technology leaders such as
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, whose prickly personalities
and refusal to accomodate laypeople have earned
them reputations as difficult people with whom to
do business.
Impact When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com,
e-commerce was still a theoretical concept. How-
ever, his determination not only made it a reality but
also proved that a business selling over the Internet
could have strong advantages over traditional
“bricks-and-mortar” stores. His far-reaching cultural
and commercial influence was recognized in 1999
when the thirty-four-year-old entrepreneur was
namedTimemagazine’s person of the year.
Further Reading
Brackett, Virginia.Jeff Bezos. Philadelphia: Chelsea
House, 2001.
Leibovich, Mark.The New Imperialists: How Five Rest-
less Kids Grew Up to Virtually Rule Your World. Upper
Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Ramo, Joshua Cooper. “Why the Founder of Ama-
zon.com Is Our Choice for 1999.”Time, Decem-
ber 27, 1999, 50-51.
Leigh Husband KimmelSee also Amazon.com; Business and the economy
in the United States; Computers; Dot-coms; Gates,
Bill; Internet; Jobs, Steve; Silicon Valley; World Wide
Web.The Nineties in America Bezos, Jeff 101
Jeff Bezos.(AP/Wide World Photos)