Jeff Bezos is an American entrepreneur who was very influential in the growth of e-commerce. He is the chief executive and founder of Amazon.com, Inc., a company that began as an online merchant of books before it expanded to a wide variety of products. Amazon.com is the largest retailer on the internet and the model for internet sales. According to Drexler (2007), Bezos began his early career in house school. He developed the Dream institute which promoted creative thinking among the young students. He graduated in 1986 from Princeton University with two degrees, computer science and electrical engineering. In 1990, he joined D.E Shaw & Co. where he became the vice president. In 1994, he quit the company and opened a virtual bookstore in Seattle, Washington. He worked from his garage for a while as he developed the software for his site which he named Amazon.com.
The greatest challenge for the company came in 1995, when Bezos needed money to launch his company.
Wet night city: Seattle, from high above on beacon...
Jeff Bezos - Caricature
Raining night city: Seattle, from high above on be...He needed $1 million to keep the company running for at least 2 years. It was very challenging because he needed the whole $1 million at once. According to him, this was a time when the company could have collapsed even before it got started. It was difficult for investors to fund his idea because they were skeptical about the potential of the internet. Ultimately, he managed to raise the whole amount from about 20 angel investors. Another challenge was convincing people to buy products via the internet when they could make a special order from retailers and get the product at their door step. In addition, every retailer streamed online (Drexler, 2007). Because of the competition, the company's market capital dropped from $32.1 billion to $8.9 billion in six years. Some people even called it...