Jeff Bezos 1997 Interview

> This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. Jeff's pitch at the time (1997); so on point, so precise: [VIDEO] > The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while. Here's Jeff explaining the Internet (at a TED talk): [LINK] > Invention. Invention is the root of our success. We’ve done crazy things together, and then made them normal... If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive. Jeff speaking about innovation, invention (based on first principles), making data-driven decisions (and also when to not trust data), learned helplessness at Stanford (2005): [LINK] > When times have been good, you’ve been humble. Heh. Reminds me of this 2008 lecture where Jeff is selling AWS to startup school students: [LINK] Classic. > Amazon couldn’t be better positioned for the future. We are firing on all cylinders, just as the world needs us to. Not sure about that last part, Jeff. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

> If Google were a book shop.. On the Amazon-CEO news yesterday, someone posted an interview of JB from 1997 [0]. In the first 2-3 minutes he explained exactly that (but for books). There are X million titles on books, they keep a tiny fraction of that in stock for 'next day delivery'. Kinda what Google does (or many search engines). Usually you find the 'most popular' answers on the first page. But when I have a tech problem, I have usually tried the 'first 5 pages' of solutions before I even try to duck it (DDG) for a solution (dear wikihow, yes I did restart my PC!). I assume HN has the type of readers that already KNOW the first 10 pages of solutions, and thus need that tiny level of detail that one gets after digging deep (stackexchange, forums, etc.) Question if anyone who knows: does Google search engine give preference to websites that display Google ads, or it is agnostic? I assume Google's crawlers can 'read' if a website is using X, Y, or Z advertiser's ads. (I haven't used Google for many many years and I usually block any google search and ads related IPs and URLs)(and ads in general). [0]: [VIDEO] I suggest you spend the 5mins to watch this video. He made it sound so easy..

Here is a 1997 interview with Jeff Bezos that I like where he talks about why he created Amazon - [VIDEO] . He describes a purely logical explanation of seeing data about internet growth and identifying books as being a uniquely good product to sell on the internet. Which is not to say he wasn't "willing to dedicate [himself] entirely to solving the problem", but I think it agrees with your take about finding market opportunities rather than following a passion.

By his words[1] it was because books had a large possible inventory, allowing him to build a store larger than any one physical store could manage. Though i imagine a lot of reasons justified books. [1]: [VIDEO]

At 4m48s: > This is day one. This is the very beginning. This is the Kitty Hawk stage of electronic commerce. [VIDEO]

As you mentioned, many of the suggested techniques can only take you so far. And it's a problem of the privileged enough to think about a startup. I find that one thing that can help, and that I would use both as self-help or as an investor judging a possible founder, is the amount of what I would call "lucid self-awareness". Is the founder able to phrase to others clearly what he is good on and why, and why the journey is worth taking, in more details than just: We should try or is where is the opportunity. Also is the founder also to detail where are the challenges and how can we overcame these. At the personal level or at the corporate level. Warning signs would be explanations at the corporate level of the type: We have a certain runaway and we will work really hard. That is a plan running on statistical luck. A positive explanation would be: We think we will not run out of runway because we have 10 paying customers and at the rate we are acquiring customers, we cover expenses in 6 months. At the personal level a warning sign would a behavioral pattern of overtime, overconfidence, depression, anxiety or irritability. Believe on the existence of an opportunity, relying on other founders deliverable without being able to articulate what they will be able to achieve, or for example not being able to clearly articulate what is your plan for failure. As stress is mostly a symptom of lack of control, the founder able to articulate what parameters he can control, and what not un

> Amazon never set out to solve specific problems, but rather found cool new applications for maturing technologies. This ( timing the market ) is probably the most important aspect of building any hyper -growth business. Also explains why early-stage investors tend to jump from one hype to another like no tomorrow. Jeff Bezos in June 1997 explaining why now and why books : [VIDEO] / mirror: [VIDEO]

This is why Amazon started as a bookstore. Jeff Bezos didn't just happen to like books. It was meant to sell everything from the start. Rather, he started out with books because he identified it as an area where an online marketplace solves a problem that a physical store cannot. [VIDEO]