In May 1999, the weekly newspaper and magazine, Barron’s, featured a now infamous cover story titled “Amazon.bomb” with an accompanying illustration of Jeff Bezos’ face on a cartoon bomb ready to explode. “The idea that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has pioneered a new business paradigm is silly,” the article read. “He is just another middleman, and the stock market is beginning to catch on to that fact.”
First impression on a first quick read: this sounds like a typical story of a founder who is convinced about his own vision for the company and is relentless sticking to his guns, even if it pisses off his partners and leadership team.
This can be one example where this worked out, but it also sounds like a lot of this worked out because in the end the internet was a big trend. I like the flexibility Bezos shows by partnering with Toys R Us and later bringing internal competition with Category managers and his external partners. There is a stubborness he shows for what he wants (high conviction I guess is how VCs would phrase it) but he is willing to look at reality.
It also reminds me of what grocery stores have been doing for years with their white label brands next to name brands
With a triad lens, I guess Bezos’s main strength shows in his ‘Market’ understanding in this case because he has enough conviction to leave a coveted hedge fund job and then stick with his guns no matter what. But I imagine there will be cases that explore when sticking with your guns can go awry. Another way to look at this is Bezos is extremely intelligent and hard working, enough to burn out other intelligent, hardworking people like his leadership team. He seems to have higher tolerance for pain that would not be recommended to most people
(but then again, I dislike this narrative of the founder who needs to eat glass to run a business)