Amazon Unbound
by Brad Stone
Stone's second Amazon book covers 2010 to 2020: Alexa, Amazon Go, the Washington Post, the HQ2 contest, the marketplace's rise, the warehouse labour story and Bezos's personal life. It is reported rather than admiring, and the chapters on how Alexa and Go were built are the most instructive.
Read it if…
you want the second decade of Amazon reported properly, including the costs.
Skip it if…
you want the founding years; see The Everything Store.
Three things you will actually use
- Invention is a system, not a moment.
- Scale creates new problems faster than it solves old ones.
- A founder's attention is the scarcest resource.
Do this first
Read the Alexa chapter for how a product is willed into existence against internal doubt.
Our verdict
The second decade, reported.
Compare with other Entrepreneurship books
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