We're back with Season 3 and we kick it off with our special guest Brad Stone, senior executive editor for global technology at Bloomberg News and bestselling author of several books, including his latest Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire.
We're back with Season 3 and we kick it off with our special guest Brad Stone, senior executive editor for global technology at Bloomberg News and bestselling author of several books, including his latest Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire.
We open up the episode with our quick takes on recent earnings announcements from Nike and Bed, Bath & Beyond, pending IPO action from digitally native brand pioneers Warby Parker and Allbirds and what we should make of deal activity in the lingerie category. Indeed, we over it all!
Then, in a fast-paced interview--nicely timed for the week that Andy Jassy takes over as CEO of Amazon--we have the opportunity to dig into the company's journey since Brad's last book ( The Everything Store) and take an insider's view of Jeff Bezos' unique leadership style. In addition to unpacking some of the keys to the company's remarkable growth--and apparent invincibility--Brad shares some illuminating and amusing anecdotes. We also tee up what's most important to keep an eye on in the future.
NOTE: We'll be releasing episodes every two weeks, through September 7, when we'll move back to a weekly format.
Brad Stone is the author of four books, including Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, published by Simon & Schuster in May 2021. It traces the transformation of Amazon into one of the largest and most feared companies of the world and the accompanying emergence of its founder, Jeff Bezos, as the richest man alive.
Brad is also the author of The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, which chronicled the foundational early years of the company. The book, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, was translated into more than 35 languages and won the 2013 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. In 2017, he also published The Upstarts: Uber, Airbnb, and the Battle for the New Silicon Valley.
Brad is Senior Executive Editor for Global Technology at Bloomberg News where he oversees a team of 65 reporters and editors that covers high-tech companies, startups, cyber security and internet trends around the world. Over the last ten years, as a writer for Bloomberg Businessweek, he’s authored over two dozen cover stories on companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Softbank, Twitter, Facebook and the Chinese internet juggernauts Didi, Tencent and Baidu. He’s a regular contributor to Bloomberg’s technology newsletter Fully Charged, and to the daily Bloomberg TV news program, Bloomberg Technology.
He was previously a San Francisco-based correspondent for The New York Times and Newsweek. A graduate of Columbia University, he is originally from Cleveland, Ohio and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three daughters.
Steve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his website. The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior contributor and on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel here.
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to Remarkable Retail podcast season three, episode numero uno, numer one. I'm Michael LeBlanc.
Steve Dennis
And I'm Steve Dennis.
Michael LeBlanc
Great news Steve the network has renewed us for season three. We're back, we got lots of exciting guests already planned,
Steve Dennis
That was close. That was close, it was touch and go there for a while.
Michael LeBlanc
It was close, lots of negotiations. And we've got a blockbuster episode and a few new things up our sleeve. So, tell, tell the people what what's up for season three.
Steve Dennis
Well, a lot of what we're going to be doing is probably familiar and hopefully what people have enjoyed about the first two seasons. But one just little calendar note is we are going to be going bi-weekly for the summer and then we'll revert to weekly after US Labor Day. But we'll continue to have guests and try to theme many of these episodes around what's most interesting and important, from our perspectives anyway, in retail. But we are going to do a few more just Michael and I episodes a little bit more content focused not only carrying forward some of the themes that we've been talking about and I cover in the book but particularly in terms of what's really new and next for retail. I wrote an article the other day for Forbes about the hybridization of retail which is a whole new area that kind of exploring which borrows some things that I'm sure people are pretty familiar with but hopefully gets into things in a little bit different way. But so, a mix, mix of kind of these duo, duet whatever episodes and then bringing out some big leaders from, from retail and other aspects of marketing and branding.
Michael LeBlanc
Well true to what we advise all of our, our listeners to do we looked at the metrics and sure enough, you know our episodes together you and I are kind of riffing on, on our views mostly years of strategy and, and are very popular. So, we thought that gives us a nice license to kind of have a mix with both guests and, and you and I chit chat.
Speaking of guests our first episode today and we'll get to it just in a minute. The author of this book ‘Amazon Unbound’, great interview. So lucky to have him join us, we're so lucky to have an author like Brad Stone join us. And so, look, keep an eye out for that, so to speak. That's coming up in a few minutes.
You know, first of all, anything catch your eye in the retail news in the past couple of weeks? We've been on a hiatus, the retail machine never, never stops. I've seen there's some there's some IPO activity. And there's some results with what jumped out at you over the past couple of weeks?
Steve Dennis
Well, we're at the tail end of earnings season, I guess thankfully, we get a little bit of a respite for a couple of months. But Nike’s earnings and Bed Bath & Beyond earnings really caught my attention. Nike, and full disclosure, they've been a past client, I worked with them a little bit at the beginning of what they call their Consumer Direct offense, which has been multiple years in the making. But the last quarter results are just amazing. Again, we've talked many times about whether we should compare what happens to what analysts thought, given that analysts have been generally pretty wrong, at least the last couple of quarters.
But I mean profitability was sky high. I have to check my notes here just in terms of some of the numbers but digital was up 41% year over year, but that was 140% up over 2019. Total sales in North America up 29% on a two-year basis. So, if people aren't familiar, the, the essence of the strategy, the so-called Consumer Direct offense has been to dial up their digital and eCommerce capabilities to go direct to consumer but also pullback, or narrow a lot of their wholesale distribution to invest behind their own store formats. And so, they've got quite a few different formats that they're growing throughout the world. But it seems like they're just clicking on all cylinders. Really the only weak spot was China where the backlash to Nike was only 17%. So, but so that was terrific.
Michael LeBlanc
You know, you know what's, what's interesting to me about Nike is a big part of that direct to consumer is the experience store strategy, right, which gets really geared up emotionally, whether you buy there or not, but to buy direct, and of course that's been hobbled over the past 18 months by the COVID era. I think they've got this big forward momentum that they created up to the COVID era. Of course, there's a tailwind with eCommerce that of course, helps as well. But I think it's interesting to see, I think they really got to get back to it. Because I think that that can erode pretty quickly in my mind that they got to get back to their experience stores now that thankfully, stores are opening up around the world.
Steve Dennis
Yeah, and one, one other note that's kind of related to that, that I thought was pretty staggering, and I remember this was also a big push going back a few years, was their membership efforts. And they said in their earnings release that they have 300 million members worldwide and so that, that's a customer data insight factory. But that's also obviously a way to reach customers directly more efficiently in a more personalized basis. So, I think the fruits of that effort will, in addition to what you're talking about in terms of their physical store, presence will be something.
Bed Bath & Beyond, I think, fascinating company to watch undergoing, I guess there about their second-year transformation. Mark Tritton, their new, newish CEO, former target executive has been making a bunch of things happen largely around private brand development, new marketing, decluttering their stores, emphasizing digital. Their numbers were mixed, I guess in terms of, you know, certainly sales were up a lot. They had a lot of stores that were, that were closed. You know, their comps were like 86% year over year, but just up 3% on a two-year basis. Their profitability was a little bit disappointing, they lost $51 million I think it was for the quarter. So that's not awesome, but they are investing behind a lot of new initiatives. So, you know, pointed in the right direction.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Steve Dennis
A bunch of new leadership team, a bunch of new leaders joining several folks that joined including, friend of mine, Rafeh Masood who's had a digital so definitely one to watch.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, I mean, I mean, to be fair, on the on the pro side, they had a bit of a tailwind with Home, right people investing in their Home, but on the negative side, I know store stores here in Ontario and across Canada were either closed completely for like 150 days, it you know, it doesn't matter how much eCommerce you're going through, that's going to impact your numbers one way shape or another. So, to be fair, you know, I think they had this, these two forces. And you know, it's just hard to make up for store closures or store restrictions, you know, 15% occupancy or wherever was I know, that was the case in the Canadian side of the border. So, I'm sure that held them back a little bit. No doubt it would impact their,
Steve Dennis
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Impact their growth. Now, there's a lot of IPO activity. We've talked about this before. But you know what you and I were talking off mic what I find fascinating about the IPO activity is it gets us a look into the financials. And I remember you know when, who was it? We Work put out their, their financial you know that their document,
Steve Dennis
We burn cash,
Michael LeBlanc
Scott Galloway took them to the woodshed. Oh, my God. Who, who, who we talking about? Allbirds and Warby Parker, which I guess says that’s an active market.
Steve Dennis
Yeah, I mean, the big news, the main news, since we were last on mic, was, was Warby Parker confidentially filing. So, we haven't seen the S1 yet to unpack those numbers. Several others are rumored of these digitally native brands, disruptive brands, whatever you want to call them are rumored to be in the pipeline. And I think some of this certainly in Warby’s case, maybe in Allbird’s case, and a few others is a reflection of both the maturity of their businesses. I mean, they've been around for a while, they need capital to grow, perhaps some of the founders want to take some and investors want to take some money off the table. And the IPO market is super, super hot. So, I think it's perfect timing in a lot of respects. But from the, to your point, from the financials, we have seen from some of these companies, whether it's the ReaReal or, or (inaudible) is a little bit better, I suppose Casper and others. A lot of these so-called disruptive brands are pretty far away from making money.
So, we'll see that doesn't mean they're not good businesses long term. But it will be interesting to see Warby’s numbers which I suspect to be pretty good. But we'll see. So, I think we got to watch the financials to see what that really tells us about the future and how far away these companies are from really big sustainable businesses. See what the valuation is like, Warby Parker raised some money last year at a $2 billion valuation. I think it was so good. We have a lot of interesting things that will come to light in the next few weeks from these IPOs that are already filed that some others that I suspect we'll see before the fall,
Michael LeBlanc
speaking of takeover activity, M&A activity, there's a bit of a name I hadn't thought of since probably last time I was in a barber chair when I was 14, Playboy. Playboy bought an Australian based Honey Birdette, which is a lingerie company, I know of Honey Birdette because they were some talk about expansion into Canada. So, you know, other than that, you know, the brand wasn't on my radar screen. But it's interesting, right? Playboy kind of gets out of publishing and has established a licensing group but now this is a big buy, right? This is a couple 100 million dollars getting into retail. interesting to watch right?
Steve Dennis
Yeah, I guess I mean, it came so out of left field. I didn't really think of Playboy as being to the extent they're still in the media business, which I'm not even sure to what degree they are but getting into properly and retail very surprising. I guess I don't really have know enough about what Playboy has been up to and what Honey Birdette is really about to know whether this is this is good or bad, but it certainly is interesting, quirky thing to hit the radar screen.
Michael LeBlanc
Well and it's certainly an active category, everything from next where to you know, we've seen so many changes happening at Victoria's Secret. And they're trying to turn that brand around. I mean, it's a, it's a busy, interesting category of retail. So, I just want to bring it up to one to watch. So, let's keep an eye on the overall category. As I said, very interesting, lots of M&A activity. Victoria's Secret bought a Canadian lingerie brand called La Senza. A couple of years ago, yeah, that didn't work out so well as a private equity company bought them last year, lots of activity. But anyway, that's, that's kind of the week's news. Anything else strike your fashion before we move on to strike your eye, catch your eyes and say?
Steve Dennis
Just continuing to kind of parse out a lot of the economic news, a lot of very favorable trends, but a lot of concerns in terms of supply chain and stimulus rolling off and labor issues. And so, I think it's going to be a pretty bumpy ride here, but mostly positive as we go forward.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, I think what we can, what we can promise our listeners is a great season because we got lots to talk about, I mean, coming out of the COVID era, this is going to be a fantastic, really interesting season, season three coming up every two weeks from now until Labor Day and then we go back to weekly, lots of people were chatting and chat to. But for now, let's get right to our great interview with Brad stone of this book once again, ‘Amazon Unbound’, a weighty tomb, but he's going to give us the high notes great discussion. So, let's have a listen to that. Now.
Steve Dennis
Well, we're delighted to kick off season three of the Remarkable Retail podcast with our special guest, Brad Stone, who is a writer, author, extraordinaire. But before we jump into his brand-new book, 'Amazon Unbound', Brad, would you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself and your professional journey?
Brad Stone
Sure. Thanks, Steve. Hi, Michael. I currently run the technology coverage at Bloomberg News. I've been a tech journalist, oh boy, I'm gonna date myself here, but it's more than 20 years, Was Newsweek magazine then the New York Times. And then came over to Bloomberg to write for Businessweek. And Amazon was one of the first companies I covered. First as a junior reporter for Newsweek. And you know, it was always sort of interested in, in the company, how secretive it was, how was disrupting retail. And just followed it. Covered it as a beat reporter for The New York Times. And then at some point, it kind of occurred to me that no one had written the great Amazon story. And that was what at least led me to my first book, 'The Everything Store' in 2013.
Steve Dennis
Yeah, we're gonna talk more about your new book, but 'The Everything Store' to me is just one of those really fascinating books. So, that came out in 2013, do I have that right?
Brad Stone
That's right. Yep.
Steve Dennis
So, Amazon wasn't, I don't think, I mean my memory gets hazy as I get older, but Amazon wasn't quite the source of fascination that it has become today is that, you know, I guess was sort of interesting timing. Maybe that was a little bit risky to write a book back then, or not so much?
Brad Stone
I think it was, it was an object of obsession in the book business. And so, in a weird way, the book business was the canary in the coal mine. They had, Amazon was disrupting publishing, not just with the Kindle, but with its own company owned imprints. And it's funny to look back at it because now it seems like such small stakes, when you look at Amazon buying MGM or investing in Prime Video, growing internationally.
Brad Stone
I joke that the, the book industry is like the child of a previous marriage for Amazon. It's like, they love the kid, they want to see it do well, but they're really more focused on the new children right now. Maybe they've got a little bit more potential. But, so back then, you know, selling a book about Amazon to book publishers that were, that were obsessed, you know, that we're thinking about it day and night and worried about it. And yeah, I think the larger world, they may be appreciated Amazon and Jeff Bezos a little bit more. There was actually a little bit maybe more of a heroic story, you know, the story of an entrepreneur changing the world to people who followed it. Now, you know, not only is Amazon more relevant, you know, and more higher profile, but I actually think there's a little bit more of a negative shadow, looming over the company and over Jeff Bezos as he retires now as CEO.
Steve Dennis
Yeah, and definitely want to get into that. But I have two quick questions. I don't know if the answers are quick about 'The Everything Store'. One is, so I worked at Sears way back, back when in my career, which at one point was kind of the everything store and people have asked me whether I thought Sears could have become the everything store? You know, could have been Amazon. A first question is any, any just general thoughts about kind of the Sears, Amazon, Walmart narrative, big picture?
Brad Stone
Yeah, I mean, I, it's funny, I remember reading Don Katz's book about Sears when I was working on 'The Everything Store'. And of course, the great irony is that he now is the CEO of Audible. And so, is an Amazon executive and was the, was the basically the Sears historian. But no, I mean, it's like we've, we've, you know, we've seen the rise and fall of these retail juggernauts over centuries. And for this book, I read a book called 'The Great A&P' by Marc Levinson, about the
Steve Dennis
Yeah,
Brad Stone
The rise of the first scale retailer, the grocery chain. And it just feels like the stories of these companies follow a sort of rhythm, and the, they rise and then the, the founders leave and the entrepreneurial energy saps away and they're handed over to, you know, a new generation of executives, but Wall Street starts to expect more predictable financial performance. And, and then gradually, they fall. And it will be the big challenge for Amazon as to whether they can really defy that trend. I think to a certain extent Walmart has.
Steve Dennis
Yeah,
Brad Stone
While its growth isn't no longer spectacular, it certainly is as relevant as ever. So, but yeah, I don't know that Sears could have remained nimble enough, or pivoted enough, particularly as the private equity folks kind of came in, to, to, you know, to, to avoid the fate that has befallen it.
Steve Dennis
Someday maybe we'll turn that is a whole other podcast series or something, but, but maybe transitioning to the new book. So, the, my second question around 'The Everything Store', as a title was, I do definitely feel like, way back when in 2013, Amazon was largely viewed as a retailer. Obviously, as time has gone on Amazon, not that there wasn't some of that going on back with your first book, but, but now Amazon is such a much more diverse company. So, I don't know how you want to answer the question, but,
Brad Stone
Yeah,
Steve Dennis
I'm sorry, I'm curious is it, is it really fair even to think about Amazon as a retailer anymore? And, and just maybe start to talk about what motivated you to, to write this second, second book about Amazon? But really, it's a, I would say, in some respects, it's much more of a book about Jeff Bezos as a personality than about Amazon per se.
Brad Stone
It's interesting that the original title that I had for the book, and this is still the name of the folder on my hard drive, where I keep all my files was, The Everything Company'. And the idea was that it really wasn't a store anymore. It was so multi-dimensional.
Brad Stone
But look, I tend to think that, you know, Amazon sort of defies easy description now. And it's not, it is a retailer. Look, I mean, it's, it's one of the world's, it's now, I guess, it maybe, the world's second largest retailer? It also happens to be so many other things, a device maker, a cloud computing provider, an entertainment company. And all of these have some very opaque but interesting connections between themselves. Like the retail part of Amazon is the largest customer for AWS. And one of the ways in which Amazon makes money on Alexa devices, is through people making purchases with their voice. But, it is a retailer, right? And, you know, the biggest part of the company is devoted to taking those orders and then fulfilling them and dropping them off people's doorsteps.
Brad Stone
So, it just requires like, and I, like have the hardest time getting my head around this. Amazon can't be described anymore in an easy one or two sentences. It's just there's, I was thinking about this as I was writing the book, trying to outline it, which you can just imagine the headache because everything's happening at the same time. And you generally want to write these things chronologically. But there's just so much surface area to the company. All the different departments and divisions that I was just talking about.
Brad Stone
And then Bezos, his transformation which kind of runs through it. He starts is this single-minded techie with the crazy hyena laugh. And he ends up the object of tabloid fascination, the wealthiest guy in the world. And, and a figure who is somewhat divisive. And so yeah, just surface area. So, it's, I was actually googling the, the name, and I, of course, I don't recall it now off the top of my head, but for the, the name for a geometric shape with an infinite number of sides. Because I thought that actually kind of describes Amazon right now.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, picking up on that theme, I mean, there's certainly, if you think about growth, I think vertically in other words, we just do more of what we used to do and horizontally we do other things, both characterize Amazon. What, in your mind has been some of the biggest changes? Is it around the way the company is, is run? I mean, I actually here's a startling factoid. an ex-boss of mine became, I think he became a president, Joe Galli, is one of the first,
Brad Stone
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
External, he came from Black & Decker.
Brad Stone
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
I worked for him at Black & Decker and he became one of the first external presidents. Is, is it the culture that's changed? Or is it Bezos has changed? Or what, what in addition to this scope and scale, in your mind is the biggest difference?
Brad Stone
Yeah, the story of Joe Galli, by the way, is a fascinating one, he remains the only CEO in Amazon's history, and he was there for about a year, I tell the story in 'The Everything Store'. And, and it was at a time when Bezos was thinking about stepping away and maybe be, taking, taking that Executive Chairman role that he now is finally taking.
Brad Stone
I don't know that the culture has, has it changed that much? I think it's, it's grown exponentially larger. But one of the, one of the remarkable accomplishments is that Bezos has, he's not just an inventor, he has created a system of invention. And it's everything from the six-page documents that are, that started off every meeting, to the 14 leadership principles to the bi-annual company reviews, OP1 and OP2. And he created a system that's very easy to scale. And so, you have now, you know, the, an infinite number of divisions very, operating in a very decent, decentralized way, getting their goals from the leadership team, the S team, and reporting their progress several times a year with these data rich, metrics heavy progress report. So, you know, maybe, maybe the culture, look Bezos micromanage everything early on. A, he is a maniac. So, it was probably harder early on, when he had his eye on everything. And now he can't possibly do that. So, he's, he's, he's micromanaging the new stuff. Oh, there was Alexa in the early days of that project. And he's allowing deputies to run everything else. So, yeah, I don't think we can say that the Amazon culture has gotten laid back. It certainly hasn't. But, because the founder, the, you know, the executive who,
Steve Dennis
Yeah,
Brad Stone
Who everyone's scared of, has receded somewhat, maybe it's become a little bit more corporate and certainly bureaucratic?
Michael LeBlanc
I mean, unpack for me, I want to pick up on one thread, you talked about allowing deputies to run divisions. I have a hard time, in my mind, imagining a leader like Jeff Bezos being hands off on a lot of decisions. But is that part of the art and science that he's been able to master? Is, is, been able to step back yet still keep a firm hand on the rutter? Because, as Steve said, and you echoed, you know, this, these inflection points, these transition points, are so tricky. I mean, we can say as many companies, I, I think a GE under Jack Welch, right, built a behemoth with momentum. And, and you know, there was a, it was a almost a religion of management. And it just didn't do so well after, after he left. But I guess that's this inflection point. Is, is, you know, what do you hope that the retailer's take away from how he is stepped back yet keeps the direction going? Is it just culture, is that it?
Brad Stone
Right, well he does something where I kind of think of it as, as managing from different altitudes. And on the new projects, Alexa, the Go Store with the cashier-less technology, probably new stuff like the healthcare initiatives and the satellite initiative called Project Kuiper. He's very close to the ground. He's meeting with teams, maybe as often as every week. And we should caveat that all this will change in late July when he steps away as CEO. But he's been, he's been meeting team, with teams regularly, reviewing documents. In the book, I talked about the early days of Alexa, when he was meeting with a team multiple times a week.
Brad Stone
And then, with the more mature parts of the company, the Marketplace, the retail division overall, AWS, he has allowed deputies to run those divisions pretty autonomously. He'll review their, their six-page documents once or twice a year. But then what he'll do is he'll, he'll audit those businesses. He'll, if he gets an email from a, a customer, he sees a problem, maybe he encounters one himself, he suddenly the, you know, he dives down towards the ground. And suddenly he's not it's
Michael LeBlanc
Or it's one of those ominous emails with the question mark,
Brad Stone
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc
You described in 'The Everything Store',
Brad Stone
The escalation,
Michael LeBlanc
I'm sure.
Brad Stone
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
I'm sure everyone jumps off their chair like it's electrified when they get,
Brad Stone
Strikes fear in the hearts of employees. And, and in the 'Amazon Unbound', I tell a couple of stories in 2017, for example, when in an OP1 meeting, he discovers that the retail division is, has been relying on advertising for their profitability, and suddenly they're meeting with him every week. So, it's, it's managing from different altitudes, allowing key deputies to be autonomous, to run their divisions with independence. But then to come in and, and you know, you know, convey his philosophy or, or steered in a different direction if it's necessary.
Steve Dennis
One of the things I really enjoy about the book, there's so many things I enjoy about it, but it's, it's the way you've organized the three parts, which I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about in a second. But, just to try to help readers or listeners picture this. So, so part one is about an invent, about invention. But in the beginning of that chapter, you call out what the annual sales, number of employees, market cap, and Jeff Bezos', his net worth. And then you transition to the second part, which is leverage and same thing, you update that. And then, part three is called invincibility. But, Brad, could you just talk a little bit about why you chose to organize things that way and help that, and how that helps you put together all the amazing history and anecdotes and leadership lessons that you've got in the book?
Brad Stone
Yeah, sure, sure. No, I'd be delighted to talk about it. Because as I said, like organizing this book was, was the most difficult challenge. Much harder than 'The Everything Store', which was a very linear story, right? A group of guys in a garage with an idea to the company being globally recognized and somewhat feared in quarters. But this book is the big company getting much bigger, and it's a bunch of things happening at the same time. I wanted to preserve the chronology, but also organize it somewhat via topics.
Brad Stone
So, the first section is 'Invention'. And I'm telling the stories of not just Alexa and the Amazon Go Stores, but Amazon's incursion into India, the creation of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, Bezos buying The Washington Post, and then wrangling with some cultural issues in the early part of the decade around that, like famous New York Times story about its culture, and then and then, and then the key, the key pivot, pivot, pivotal years of AWS and releasing financials on its underlying profitability.
Brad Stone
And then the second part of the book is called, 'Leverage'. And that's basically the, the older parts of the business, right? Marketplace, consumables, the Operations Division and the Advertising Division, and how, you know, those older parts of the business suddenly became much more profitable, in part because of some of the changes in direction that, that Bezos conveyed. For example, making the Marketplace a global platform for sellers to sell across borders. And of course, all those changes came with some unintended consequences. And then I include Blue Origin in there, it's part of it is, it's somewhat subjective, right, I needed to find homes for these things, but chronologically, it kind of worked, also.
Brad Stone
And then the last section of the book is, is, 'Invincibility'. And you guys will appreciate it, I thought, pretty hard about what do I call this third part of the book? And that includes HQ2, and Bezos' tangle with the National Enquirer, and some of the antitrust proceedings, and then the pandemic. And at the end of it, I thought, you know, what, like Amazon skated through all these controversies, and in some cases, disasters, and was unscathed, right? It's at $1.8 trillion company right now, almost. And I thought, you know, what, if anything, they've demonstrated that they're pretty close to invincible. And that's how I came up with the last part of it.
Steve Dennis
One thing that's pretty incredible when I was going through, getting prepped for the interview, and I was looking at some of the numbers, so, as you obviously know, but just for the listeners, part two, the beginning of, 'Leverage', Amazon's net sales are 135, 136 billion, and the market caps of 355 billion. And then just two years later, those numbers have basically doubled. So, doubling of market cap and sales in just a couple of years. And I guess now the market caps 1.7 trillion, or I don't know,
Brad Stone
Yeah, and I just looked, Bezos' is now worth $201 billion.
Steve Dennis
Yeah, and McKenzie got a little bit of that, as I recall,
Brad Stone
Exactly poster boys.
Steve Dennis
So, here's an unfair question, if you had to, and I hate to put you on the spot, but if we really fumble with this, I guess we can just edit it out. But if you hadn't come up with the chapter title, or part title, for part four at this point, three years later, any, any thoughts on what that might be?
Brad Stone
Yeah,
Steve Dennis
Once you get to invincibility, it's hard to
Brad Stone
Well, I would say, first of all, I might do something like that for the paperback edition. But, I think it's very much, I would position it as an epilogue. And in some ways, I think that's what this period feels like, at least to this story. Well, as I was finishing this book Bezos, announced via the, the, I think it was the fourth quarter earnings report, that he was, he would be leaving the CEO role. And I had a moment of panic, because I thought does this, this might change my whole book. But then I kind of realized, you know, what this is, in some ways, the story I've been telling of Bezos, you know, his eyes opening up to a larger world, becoming a political figure, an entertainment figure, a tabloid figure, and starting to enjoy the life of leisure to which his wealth had, you know, introduced him. And he's, he's building the mega yachts, which I report in the book.
Brad Stone
And, and so I thought, you know what, I don't need to do much. And I obviously worked it into the last chapter. But I think what this period feels like is Bezos stepping further back, setting a time to leave the CEO role. And then July 26, go into space, right? This is like the thing that he's always dreamed of. I quote, I have a quote in, 'The Everything Store' from an ex-girlfriend saying the reason Bezos is making all this money is to go to space one day. So, either epilogue or maybe adventure,
Steve Dennis
I am just trying to lose a few pounds, that's my goal.
Brad Stone
Yeah, maybe he can recommend a personal trainer for you,
Michael LeBlanc
Apparently,
Brad Stone
Maybe, maybe it's also an adventure, you know, because he really does seem like he doesn't, he's so criticized for his wealth right now. But he just doesn't seem to care. And he's going to go and have these adventures and experiences and, and maybe move on a little bit from caring how that, how that shadow falls on Amazon as a result.
Michael LeBlanc
So, you know, we're at a point of transition. And I just want to come back to this whole culture of transition piece because it feels, and there's been some recent news about things like turnover at Amazon, but the sense that it's ingrained in a culture that there's productivity and this, this battle, so to speak, between machines and humans and productivity and certain amount of turnover is okay. I mean, they've got a fairly high turnover level. They're hiring hundreds of thousands of people which tells as me, they're hiring more people than they're opening warehouses. So, they've got some turnover. But maybe, as the culture, as it exists today, is, is built for that.
Michael LeBlanc
As you move forward, as you say, into this next part, which is, you know, maybe it's, it's this intersection, or transition, or inflection point, what's your bet, given everything you know, about this organization that they can keep this culture going? As you said, there's many examples of folks who did, you think of Walmart today, you walk into buyers’ office there, Sam Walton quotes, and, you know, they still have vendors who call them collect, right? I mean,
Brad Stone
Right?
Michael LeBlanc
These pieces of culture, just, you know, sustain for decades long past the founder,
Brad Stone
Yeah, I think Amazon is in a, in a pretty good position to continue its success. It feels to a certain extent, like a boulder rolling downhill right now just gathering speed. And, the fact that there are now fulfillment centers within 60 miles of my house, and who knows, maybe your houses, the fact that Amazon has this vast transportation fleet, you know, it just means that they've got so many advantages now. And I really don't see anyone capable of catching up anytime soon.
Brad Stone
That the turnover is a problem. It's very much by design. As I write in the book, Bezos has always wanted a little bit of a, you know, a temporary workforce. He didn't want employees to get entrenched, to maybe be prone to unionization. He thought that would limit the company's flexibility. As Amazon gets bigger, the hiring needs get ever more extraordinary. But the company has so many little knobs at its disposal, right. It, if it's suddenly finding itself in a low employment environment, having difficulty hiring for the holidays, they we thought during the pandemic, they offered a $17 an hour, starting wage and a signing bonus. Those are things that its competitors, including Walmart, really can't do, right. The, for a number of reasons, some of them just can't afford it. But others have to conform to market expectations, and it would really hurt their profit. Then Amazon's profit is soaring right now. And investors are always willing to tolerate a bad quarter or two. So, there are just so many advantages Amazon has at its disposal right now.
Michael LeBlanc
I mean, that's, that's almost a whole subject for a whole other podcast is this part about exceptions, right. As you say, you know, companies as big as Walmart can, and could, you know, certainly have the financial resources to make the same investments, but they seem to be measured by a different metric, fairly consistently. How is it you think that Bezos and Amazon have been able to keep that narrative and keep that going, so, so long, that they're just seen as, as different, as a different form of capitalism?
Brad Stone
Right. And I guess we should question is that really true anymore? I mean, Amazon is so now extraordinarily profitable, that may be finally investors are going to begin to expect it. And if they were to lose money for a couple quarters, we might see a, you know, reversal in the, in the direction of the stock price. But I think you go back to 1997, and that first shareholder letter,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Brad Stone
Where Bezos stated how he was going to run the company and, and then, and then did so. And Amazon kind of wandered in the desert for 10 years with a very stagnant stock price after the dot com bust. And, and but has been, they've been right about so many things, not just eCommerce, but the Kindle, and the Alexa, and Amazon Web Services that they've earned the trust. Now,
Michael LeBlanc
And they've created I mean, they've, they've
Brad Stone
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Let's not sell Amazon short by any means. They've created some of the most innovative technology and business models in the past century. I totally,
Brad Stone
Totally. Now, the question is, Bezos obviously got a lot of he, he, he had a lot of loyalty and he convinced investors to have a lot of patience. And a key question is whether that kind of halo, or how much of it will transfer over to Andy Jassy and the new leadership team. If he has a couple of bad quarters, will the institutional investors hold their noses and keep the faith in the same way that they did for the years of Jeff Bezos? That, that's a, that's a key question.
Steve Dennis
So, Brad, I'm mindful of our time, and we talked off mic about when we were trying to get organized for this interview, there's this so much in, in this book, there's I mean, you can tell, I mean, you're, you're a great writer, but you're a great reporter as well. There's just so much, so many anecdotes, and stories, and chronologies, and so forth. But I'm curious, so in 'The Everything Store', you, you track down Bezos' father. In 'Amazon Unbound', you track down the voice of Alexa, which is a fun little anecdote, but I'm curious among all the stories, whether they're about Bezos, or just things that happened in Amazon, is, are there one or two that you just really, really love and maybe give a flavor for what readers will find when they dive into,
Brad Stone
Sure.
Steve Dennis
'Amazon Unbound'.
Brad Stone
Yeah, and the Alexa, the Alexa voice was funny, because I thought when I started on this book, 'How can I possibly, how can I possibly duplicate the feat with the Father?' Presumably, Jeff didn't have any other long lost, lost relatives to find. So, I thought, you know what I'm gonna, I'm gonna figure out who Alexa is. And that's in the book.
Brad Stone
But I'll give you two that really maybe jumped out at me, probably because they were so difficult. Well, one was, it's sort of curious, but it's the case of the, the single cow burger. And I heard this kind of mythology inside the company that Bezos had become obsessed with having Amazon Fresh manufacture and sell a hamburger made from the meat of just one cow. And he, that he was taste testing it and asking for changes in the formula and the packaging, in a, he had, he had read a story about how hamburgers were made in the Washington Post, and he thought this was something that Amazon could do that was unique. And we talked about that style of leadership changing altitude, altitudes. And here's one where he's very close to the ground. And the story of the single cow burger is in the book. And I think it's pretty funny. And in the end, it doesn't make much of a difference to Amazon Fresh. But it's an example of how Bezos is really consumed with just doing new things.
Brad Stone
And then look, I mean, the story that I tell in chapter 13, about Bezos is entanglement with the National Enquirer, and his, his medium post about how they were extorting him and the involvement of the Saudis. I mean, you guys, you probably can appreciate how, how difficult it was to unspool that Byzantines story. Everyone involved in that, it was a questionable character, with, with strong motives,
Michael LeBlanc
The girlfriend's brother, oh my god,
Brad Stone
Oh yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Maybe it's like made for the old that, what was that old the soap opera Peyton Place?
Brad Stone
Exactly. It's,
Michael LeBlanc
Incredible,
Brad Stone
just the back. And oh, boy. And then, and then Bezos himself, like blaming political intrigue and international espionage and MBS, and the Saudis, when really none of that was, was at least I don't think was true. I think it was really the brother turning over his private information to the. But, but you know, just in addition to being a great story, I think it's, if, this book is about transformation. The transformation of the company, and the transformation of its founder. And this was a, it's a key way point in Bezos' metamorphosis. From the techie, consumed with Amazon, into someone who is comfortable appearing and being photographed at the courtside at Wimbledon, and buying his own yacht, and taking helicopter lessons, and now going to space. And so, it really does, I think the way he handled that, and kind of escaped scrutiny is a great example of how he operates and how much he's changed.
Steve Dennis
Well, you've somehow managed, and I'm very envious, you somehow managed to do what, what a lot of great business books do in terms of, you know, laying out lessons and, you know, providing history and context and behind the scenes as well as what I think is very much, you know, kind of the classic hero's journey. So, it's, it's kind of sort of a novelist, or a novel feel to it in some ways, which I think makes it particularly fascinating.
Steve Dennis
But before we let you go, one last, last question, we talked a bit about the transition to Andy Jassy. But is there anything else as we think about Amazon's next phase, and their growth and their evolution that you think we should be paying particular attention to? I know that from a more pure retail perspective, we've started to talk about their, their plans for getting into the supermarket industry more broadly, people are talking about services, and insurance, and prescriptions. And, but from your view, your view, what do you think is the most interesting the thing that people should zoom in on?
Brad Stone
Yeah, thanks, Steve, I think, I think we should probably keep an eye on Amazon. To the relationship with, with its workers. And you, Bezos said in the last shareholder letter that he kind of recognizes that there's a problem and that he wants Amazon to be the world's most, or the Earth's most employee centric company. And that's a radical change with how he's operated Amazon in the past. So, the extent that they can make a work in the fulfillment centers less transactional, the relationship they have with the delivery service providers who are contractors, if they can, if they can kind of keep up with their growth there. I think that's going to be more important than, than expansion. I mean, there will be expansion, the new product categories, health care. We talked about satellite internet access. Maybe home robots, different devices, they've of all things they've opened a hair salon in London.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brad Stone
Those will always, there will always continue to be the shiny new objects, the bizarre things that they're doing, new grocery stores, those are coming. But fundamental to Amazon is, can they take can order and, and give you a promised delivery time and then meet that promise? And that is, those are, that is the purview of the million plus workers in the fulfillment centers. And, and you know, they're entering a time of greater scrutiny over those relationships and how they conduct business. And so, I think that's important, it will be important to watch.
Michael LeBlanc
I mean, to me that that last part is really interesting because it, there's so much imagination and creativity goes into their business models that I think can be the solution if they set their mind to it, to solving problems, like, you know, as prosaic as where you urinate when you're a driver, and you're, you know, that's not,
Brad Stone
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Their problem alone. But it's a lot of problem. It's a big problem. How do, you know, when you look at the pandemic, you see employees very safe at the facilities, but getting to and from the facilities is, seems to be a problem that could be solved by an organization like Amazon. So, anyway, I just wanted to add that as a point of intrigue, and I think optimism to an organization that can change many things and has, has power to, to do that for good or, you know, for, for, for itself.
Brad Stone
Yeah, I agree with that.
Steve Dennis
All right, well, thanks so much. The man is Brad Stone. The book is 'Amazon Unbound, Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire'. It's a fantastic book, so many things we weren't even able to touch on here that you can learn a lot more about. But thanks so much, Brad for joining us and best luck. I don't know that you need much, much luck on this book. It's, it's getting great reviews and selling very, very well. But check out Brad's work as well on the broader global technology front as part of Bloomberg.
Brad Stone
Thank you, guys,
Michael LeBlanc
Alright, that's a wrap on this episode Steve, season three episode one in the can ready to go. And if listeners, if you liked what you heard, please follow us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music anywhere where you love your podcasts, and catch up with the great interviews. Subscribe so they will automatically show up in your podcast platform. Please take a minute and drop us a review that's so helpful in building up our more listeners. The more reviews we got, the more listeners we get, the more we can spread the great word of retail and the hybridization of retail.
Steve Dennis
Well, and I'm Steve Dennis you can find me on social media at Stephen P Dennis or on my website, stephenpdennis.com. And I hope you'll check out my book, the second edition of 'Remarkable Retail, How to Win and Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption' is available just about everywhere books are sold.
Michael LeBlanc
And I'm Michael LeBlanc, host of The Voice of Retail podcast, and a bunch of other stuff. And you can find me on meleblanc.co, or of course on LinkedIn.
Michael LeBlanc
Steve, have a great couple of weeks. We'll be back on the mic soon. And be safe everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
amazon, bezos, book, retail, company, bit, store, thought, story, people, year, called, part, business, divisions, fulfillment centers, playboy, buy, unbound, culture