Mediacom, along with these Television Companies, supports cspan2 as a public service. Host im very excited to be here to interview today for your new book, amazon bound. Before we start i just want to tell you when i first started coming amazon about five years ago the first thing i did was read your previous book about amazon, the Everything Store. So for me its a true honor to get this opportunity and im looking forward to it. Guest thanks, eugene. People probably dont know this but the fraternity of reporters who cover amazon is a small one and all kind of know each other, and you just done tremendous work covering amazon. So its great to talk to someone who is steeped in this secretive, bizarre, you know, highly Productive Company like amazon. Host thanks. So i think the first thing i would like to ask is just the timing of the book. It ended up becoming incredibly precedent, the perfect time to publish a new book about amazon, just given jeff bezos stepping down and a couple months but can you kind of tell us what was your thinking behind coming up with this book . Guest sure. And, of course, i did not time it, i did not have any idea that jeff bezos would be leaving scl amazon. In fact, i started this book really in the beginning of 2018. So the list of things that i did note, h2q i think maybe, i think was just being announced and that played out an early stages of my research. Jeffs personal saga come his divorce from mckinsey, the whole tabloid scrum over his personal life. Thatll happen midway through my research and those writing during the pandemic, this extraordinary time when amazon already very rapidly growing company was basically given an injection of steroids and also moved into the center of this acrimonious debate over how it treats its workers and the safety of work workers during the age of covid19. Hollis price. The reason im with the book and decided to do another amazon book, which eugene country you can appreciate, its like being a total glutton for punishment is because i i was really prof the everything story, and yet it just occurred to me over the years that it was a sort of data history. It wasnt a date history. As part of the story, the beginning, the origin, the rise of jeff bezos, the origin of amazon and yet then the was alexa and the growth of the Transportation Network and the explosion in the amazon market place and so much happen, 150 billion company and become 1 trillion company. Basis was the wealthiest person in the world and realize theres a whole nother chapter to the saga. Host and i personally love the intro, the first scene of the book. Kind of comes like an opening scene of the movie and basically starts at this kind of celebrity packed event in 2019. He is at the center of attention and sets the tone for the entire book. What were you trying to capture or what does that say about the period of amazon you were trying to capture in this book . Guest so the opening anecdote of the book is jeff bezos being inducted into the smithsonian portrait gallery. This is the sanctified hall of the most famous americans throughout history, frederick douglass, abraham lincoln, George Washington and bezos along with half a dozen other people like Linmanuel Miranda are being inducted. The portraits are going to hang in the gallery. And there he is at the opening ceremony. His son preston introduces him. He gives a speech. He surrounded by the upper crust of american society, politicians, media. And through a number of things i really liked about it. One thing he said in his speech is he committed the artist for the portrait, which is quite severe. I dont know if youve seen it, eugene, but he looks scary in this portrait and he commends the artist for kind of portraying him, you know, scars and all, he says. He says ive gathered a lot of scars in the last 20 years leading amazon, and thats one thing the portrait shows. I think metaphorical scars. I like that because the book was going to be an account of his warts and all, rise to power. So to me it really just represented the journey i was going to hopefully take readers on. Host so if you have to sum up this period you wrote about, its sort of like a sequel to your earlier book. I think i saw your tweet about comparing this to star wars. Guest this is the Empire Strikes back. Host but yes. But how is this amazon or this new jeff bezos different from the one you wrote about in your first book . Guest he absolutely is different. Theres a number in the number of ways. The first and most obvious is visibly hes a different guy here right . The sort of awkward, tech nerd from seattle always sort of unfashionable, the crazy laugh, you know, the presentations that were incredibly esoteric technical like his introduction to the fire phone. Thats the jeff bezos of the everything story. And over the last five years, first of all, kudos to his physical trainer, right . Because thats quite an exercise regimen, and hes much more fashionable. It seems plausible Lauren Sanchez his partner has boosted his fashion levels quite a bit. Hes got the sunglasses and the crisp suits. Okay, so thats one dimension of change. I think another is the Everything Store is a brutal ceo whos quite punishing and sets high standards and kind of lashes out at underlings who dont need a standard, very steve jobs like management style. And i think hes evolved that way as well. There are many fewer of those kinds of stories in amazon bound. There are some in that respect maybe its a little godfather two like and where flashing back to jeff tearing up documents and motivating them in that way. Hes got a more delicate touch now. And yet, you know, he still has the founders magic, sets high bars, employees scrambled or edges emails and to satisfy him. Anthony other ways he is significantly different is his focus has expanded so much. He was laser focus for so long on amazon, holding this mechanism, the system of invention that could carry on. And now, this is i think the territory that amazon unbound commerce is his purchase of the Washington Post, his deeper involvement in blue origin, his space company, his philanthropy obviously. His eyes and open up to much larger world and i think thats a little behind his resignation as ceo. Theres so much more that he is doing now, hes not just become hes gone from being the iconic tec seo of the Everything Store into this Global Presence of amazon unbound. Host and also the company itself, amazon that he is leaving, profile has completed changed from the first book till now, right . Every Business Market you can imagine. Guest and one way i think to really bring that home is when we think back to amazons battles with the Book Publishers, and how trivial those seem now, right . In the larger scheme of thing. Those are significant issues for the book industry but amazon was fighting with the Book Publishers over the 9. 99 kindle price and Availability Price and availability of the number of ebooks in the kindle store, and stripping suppliers out of the search results if there were not satisfying amazon. And it was because the Book Business with so strategic, and this was 2011, 2012. And now the Book Business obviously still very representative of amazon and its current image. I think people probably still to think of amazon as a bookseller, but it is a minor part of its business. This is a company that is true is the every store Everything Store now. One of its most important markets no longer the kindle but the likes of the voice activated computer. Its investing billions of dollars in india. In its global ambitions and probably thinks more about hollywood and tv shows and movies in terms of important content than books. Host and while were talking about his transformatio transformation, what did of amazon executives think about it . I think in your book you say some Senior Leaders were happy about the increased autonomy and independence while some people were disappointed because bezos basically failed to meet his own high standards by becoming fodder for tabloids. Guest okay. Were talking about the tabloid, yes. First of all, we can both kind of acknowledge how difficult it is, right, to get amazon executives to talk, particularly on the record, right, about their boss. Its a sort of radioactive topic. Fortunately, like this is a longterm project and it was the elephant in the room that may be needed to be addressed. I think if youre asking like how did they respond to the tabloid scandals of late 2018, early 2019, i think like probably both of us come with utter astonishment. Like how could the worlds smartest and most disciplined man a part of this, get caught up in this . The national enquirer, right, a tabloid that been relevant for many years splashing his personal life, the purpose of of an intensely private person, you know, on its pages, and then jeff responding with that famous blog post on medium accusing the inquirer of having political motives and maybe a little bit of International Intrigue setting the saudi example was still better. Amazon executives and employees were actually astonished, and i definitely heard this disappointment from many quarters that he allowed himself to be subject to this. But we have to acknowledge that bezos played masterfully, right . The medium post, and we get into that, whether its accusations of political intrigue were true, but it swung 72 aside. I think despite the disappointment a lot of folks at amazon and ran around amazoo sort of grudgingly acknowledged once again, jeff had one come like he outmaneuvered his enemies and now we look back and we say that was a really bizarre episode, but its pretty much in the past and bezos as usual came out on top. Host did you talk to bezos or mackenzie scott, his exwife, or maybe i think you mentioned like you talk to 400 amazon executives, can you tell us a little bit about that . Guest sure. First of all, eugene, you probably remember that when the Everything Store came out, mackenzie, then Mackenzie Bezos gave me a one star review. You know, i sort of bragg is a most famous book review ever. It certainly is sort of up there but what it reflected was they didnt like the first book. They thought it was, the were a number, they had a number of problems with it and it wasnt going for a great portrait and a picture of the company that was challenging to work for him to work with but nevertheless, risen to be very powerful in our society. So i had to get past some of the memory from the first book in the end amazon did cooperate. They authorize a couple of dozen interviews with top executives like andy and jeff wilke and dave clark who is now the ceo of the consumer business after jeff wilke retired. Bezos would not talk to me, and mackenzie scott, as far as i can tell, has been one interview with vogue magazine years and years ago i took book launch tends to be an intensely private person with so far avoided the media spotlight. Host so maybe you can start with the first chapter of the book. I think theres a lot of great anecdotes about bezos role and coming up with alexa and the echo, and i think the Common Thread is that bezos set the bar really high. He pushed the team to almost irrational goals, right . I think one quote is you guys are not series of making this product. Trade and he walks out of the room. Host so how important was bezos for coming up with this device that are usually the most successful personal device that amazon came up with . Guest sure. Were probably going to talk about amazon as a potential monopolist, as a dominating force in american business. So i dont mind and this is what i start the book up this way, getting amazon credit and jeff bezos credit as an Innovative Company and bezos as an inventor and thats how he likes to describe himself, as an inventor. When i dig into the history of alexa it was surprising because the real story had not been told. Essentially the idea for alexa springs out come right out of jeffs mind in late 2010. He sent a note to his Technical Assistant at the time, kind of the chief of staff, ian freed, steve kessel, a couple of executives and he says why dont we built a 20 computer whose brains are in the cloud that uses aws, which are completely controlled by your voice . And that was a really kind of radical notion. This idea that most speech Recognition Systems at the time you spoke right into, okay . That makes it really easy. Speaking to a device across room would be a technical challenge. Then theres just the challenge of having it understand you and respond. That required an advance in Artificial Intelligence. Bezos is doing a couple things. One, he was looking for ways to exploit amazons early lead in its web services and he was looking for ways to kind of move amazon into everyday use of peoples lives. So to answer your question, he concedes the project, puts his chief of staff in charge of it and then hes a product manager. Thats what they call them. He drives up the vision. He with the team, sometimes several times a week. He picks alexis voice. He makes decisions about what features you should have. He wrestles with the team about whether alexa is going to basically just a practical stuff like playing music. He wanted to be kind of versatile Artificial Intelligence and then he sets the bar high. First he said he wanted to launch in six months, which is impossible. It takes three years but he constantly drives the team. He authorizes probably the biggest impact he had, hes willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on it. At one point he says too great, higher all the ai folks that you cant. They shouldnt be any limit. He gives him Carte Blanche to go and hire any smart ai or speech person who is available on the market. When a ceo is behind Something Like that, particularly the founder, that gives any company thats going to give a project a lot of momentum. Host with bezos role as his key product manager i think he recent interesting point in your book that that also creates this cultural fear where people are too afraid to argue against our bring of different ideas or say its not a good idea against bezos. Is that, did that affect alexa product roadmap or result in any way . Guest well, i think the big illustration of that is the fire phone, right . That was another idea and a nestle the fire phone story in the alexa chapter, and jeff had this idea that you could have 3d screen and a premium handset and differentiate from the iphone, and nobody on the team thought it was a good idea. In fact, they had dogtags made that said disagree and commit, kind of amazon think which stood for like weve got to do this but we dont agree with the product roadmap. And it didnt seem like anybody really stood up to jeffs vision. To answer your question, in terms of alexa there were features that launched with the original echo, you know. They are too obscured even name but they launched because jeff wanted it. But probably probably say no and going to stamp kim, i dont think thats right. I think theyre a good contentious discussions and some of the product meetings but i think, you know, hes the founder. Hes got incredible record of success and that brings a lot of credibility. If sometimes people disagree, if he insists, it will probably happen. Host and looking back at bezos track record as a product manager, theres only a few like a handful of big projects that he was i think directly engaged in, the fire phone, alexa, mae amazon go, the studios but theyre sort of a mixed record so far. Whats his legacy as a product manager . Do you think he is still like steve jobs type of visionary . Guest without a doubt. I mean, no one batting average is going to 1000 it when you think about, he has remade a number of industries and its not just ecommerce but his Enterprise Computing and aws as he had some of the original insights for that and then you look at the kendall, a vision and product he drove. It really changed bookselling and not alexa and passion in the age of voice can. I think the jury is still out on longterm successful alexa could be, but it certainly has inspired a lot of competitive, competing projects. I think its an extraordinary record of success. We can talk about some of the downsides because the were a lot of things that just created or help to create like the Amazon Marketplace i got to a certain size as instead of being the uber project that he took a step back and said you guys manage to this independently, it truly profitable, its great, i i dt want to be that involved anymore. And it veers off course and ends up impacting and potentially hurting a lot of people. But you know you know l record as an inventor is startling, and is not just at amazon, the term rent at the Washington Post has been amazing as well. Host interesting. And i think its maybe good time to talk about him stepping down and maybe aws his successor andy, you can explain a little bit about who he is, why aws is so important to amazon over the past ten years. Guest right. A lot of people over the years when we had the discussion about who might be bezos successor, first we said jeff bezos we ceo forever, but if we really need to go through the exercises it is either going to be andy jassy jeff wilke. Both of those guys unfortunate a lot of Senior Leadership up until recently has been very male at amazon. But both of those guys joined in the late 90s and helped o kind of steer amazon to the. Com bus and build what it is today. Jeff wilke ran the consumer business and actually retired last year and jassy was the shadow, the chief of staff or early on in amazons lifespan. And he then took over this idea for aws, or cloud computing. As some people might remember that its kind of a relic of the past, amazon for a long time was a very unprofitable company, kind of lost when investors have a lot of patien