Well Everyone has on opinion and stars rating even Mrs. Bezos

[kennyc]

Jeff Bezos' wife gives a one-star review to the new Amazon book

By Carolyn Kellogg
November 4, 2013, 1:41 p.m.
In general, "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon" by Brad Stone has been getting pretty good reviews. Not, however, from the Amazon user MacKenzie Bezos, who gives it one star.

MacKenzie Bezos is Jeff Bezos' wife, and Amazon has confirmed that it is in fact her who posted the review.

In a 900-word write-up criticizing the book, MacKenzie Bezos asserts that the book leads off with an inaccuracy -- that Jeff Bezos read "Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro before he started Amazon, which she says he read a year later.

"I have firsthand knowledge of many of the events," she writes. "I worked for Jeff at D. E. Shaw, I was there when he wrote the business plan, and I worked with him and many others represented in the converted garage, the basement warehouse closet, the barbecue-scented offices, the Christmas-rush distribution centers, and the door-desk filled conference rooms in the early years of Amazon’s history. Jeff and I have been married for 20 years."

Mrs. Bezos gives "The Everything Store" the lowest possible ranking, one star out of five. She thinks, as well as being inaccurate, the book goes too far to describe Bezos' state of mind without interviewing the man himself, and that it is dismissive of those who relay "accounts of a supportive and inspiring culture" at Amazon.
....

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketc...#axzz2jhdWuvI0

[jersysman]

Seems like a good reason to give the book a low rating. It's kind of hard to describe someone's state of mind without actually talking to the subject individual.

[Mike L]

Well, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, Mr Stone is getting a lot of useful publicity for the book.

Mike

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Well, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, Mr Stone is getting a lot of useful publicity for the book.

Mike

No such thing as bad publicity as they say...

[SteveEisenberg]

I know it's been a while since anyone posted to this thread, but, well, tonight is when I finished the book.

Highly recommended. While reading tastes are personal and unpredictable, I think that most people who post here should find this a page-turner. I did. Plus it was a relief to escape from the violence of the last two books I read (one a spy novel, one a murder mystery).

The thesis of the book is that Jeff Bezos is the key to Amazon's vision. You could say that books like this almost always have such a great man thesis, but this time it is proved.

As for complaints that the book is anti-Bezos or anti-Amazon, these are overblown. Amazon is not a company I've ever seen on lists of best companies to work for. And it has high employee turnover. Those are facts, and a reasonable narrative has to fit them. But if you compare how Brad Stone portrays Bezos with how Walter Isaacson portrays Steve Jobs, Bezos is a saint. Yes, Bezos is portrayed as insulting his staff when he gets angry. But he is also portrayed as trying to overcome that. And his contributions to policy are shown positively. There are no stories of him pushing product features that made the product function poorly, as with Jobs (the Jobs-dictated shape of the Apple III and NeXT allegedly resulted in malfunctions, and there was something similar with antenna design on one of the iPhones). Instead, items Bezos insisted on against advice of staff, including Amazon Prime and Whispernet, are described as major successes.

Reviews on amazon.com, by former and current employees, are worth reading after reading the book. Positive or otherwise, they confirm the confrontational Amazon culture Stone describes.

As for the spouse, there isn't a word in the book against her, or against her husband, as a husband. There are few biographies of great men where you can say that.

[kennyc]

Thanks Steve!

[elemenoP]

I really enjoyed the Businessweek piece that was an excerpt of this book, so I think I'll have to read it!