For La Stampa. one of Italy’s major dailies, I interviewed Brad Stone, a Bloomberg Businessweek journalist, author of a very detailed and insightful book on Amazon and on its founder Jeff Bezos. It’s a fascinating read: Amazon looks like an unstoppable machine that devours everything on its path, while at the same time providing an excellent service to customers. Here’s the link to the article on La Stampa’s website. For my non Italian speaking readers, below you find the English version.

 

Why did you choose to focus on Amazon?

Over the past few years, there have been well-reported, insightful books about Google, Apple, and Facebook. These technology companies, along with Amazon, are changing the world. I thought there was an opportunity to finally tell the Amazon story – one of the first companies on the Internet, which has changed the way we shop and read.

I have covered Amazon since the late 90s, for Newsweek, the New York Times and now Bloomberg Businessweek. I drew on those years of coverage, and my many interviews with senior Amazon executives including Jeff Bezos, in the two years that I spent researching and writing the book.

 

From what you write, Amazon emerges as a very aggressive company, sometimes ruthless with rivals and partners, exploiting employees to the maximum extent. Should we be scared by Amazon and the model it represents?

I don’t think customers should be scared of Amazon. The company is tailored toward pleasing its customers and has created many superior alternatives to the traditional shopping experience.

But rivals should be scared. Amazon is an extraordinarily disciplined company with a highly efficient business model, run by an infinitely clever CEO who is loved by his shareholders and thus allowed to expand with little regard for quarterly profit. Rivals need to protect their businesses from Amazon; for example, by ensuring that they have a unique customer proposition that is not easily copied. And partners need to be careful to protect their interests in dealings with Amazon, because Amazon will consistently push the boundaries on behalf of its own customers and to further its own interests.

 

Bezos seems to have built the company to his own image, as Jobs did with Apple. What do you thnk would happen if Bezos would leave the company?

Jeff Bezos is about to turn 50 and likely has many years ahead at the helm of Amazon. But this will ultimately be a significant concern for any Amazon investor. The company is incredibly complex and diverse and it’s hard to imagine anyone as versatile as Bezos who would be capable of running it. That said, there are Amazon senior executives like Jeff Wilke, Andy Jassy and Diego Piacentini who have worked at the company for years and think much like Bezos.

 

Was Bezos of help while you were collecting information for the book. are there any details you found difficult to find and that are considered “secret” by the company?

While Bezos personally told me he thought it was “too early” to tell the Amazon story, he did say, “I am rooting for you” and sanctioned many interviews with family, friends and senior Amazon executives.

At the same time, there are many Amazon secrets that I tried and failed to pry loose. For example, the company is infamously tight with its internal metrics. I have no better idea than any other outsider, for example, how many Amazon Prime members there are, despite my best efforts to find out. Overall, Amazon is very disciplined with its internal communications and measurements. I was quite pleased to acquire one very revealing memo, written by Bezos himself, which I reprint in Chapter 11. Bezos’s “Amazon.Love” memo to his senior staff reveals his thoughts about how he would like his company to be loved, instead of feared, when it becomes even larger than it is today.

There seems to be no limit to what Bezos aspires to do and is capable to do. What will be Amazon’s next moves, according to the information you gathered?

Amazon is expanding in almost every conceivable direction. It’s incredible to watch. The company is moving internationally – it recently introduced new sites in Mexico and India. It is building new hardware; we may see an Amazon TV set-top box later this year or early 2014, and perhaps new Amazon phones as well. It is also adding new kinds of products to “the everything store.” Recently it unveiled an Amazon Art category and it is expanding the sale of groceries around the U.S. There simply seems to be no limit to the kinds of things Bezos believes can be sold online, and to the areas of the world where he aspires to dominate.

What are amazon’s strongest competitors, the companies they are more afraid of?

Amazon executives would say they are focused on customers, not competitors. But I don’t believe that is entirely true. I believe Bezos and his Kindle team are working hard to create an ecosystem of Kindle products and services to rival the Apple and Google platforms. This is critical. As consumers increasingly shop, stream movies and read e-books on their tablets and phones, Amazon must improve its own device business or risk losing its customers to those rivals. Amazon also likely closely tracks retail giants like Walmart and Tesco.

What’s your personal opinion on the human both as on the professional level, about Jeff Bezos and Amazon in general?

I have enormous admiration and respect for someone who has created so much in so little time. In less than two decades Bezos has made it immeasurably easier to shop and given readers instant access to nearly every book published in the last 100 years. While I wonder if some of his business tactics are unnecessarily ruthless, he currently employs more than 100,000 people and has supported many careers and families. There are certainly aspects of Amazon that should be scrutinized – such as the treatment of workers in its fulfillment centers – but overall, it is a great story of how one man and his colleagues placed a hugely successful bet on the Internet.