AmazonFresh Is Jeff Bezos' Last Mile Quest For Total Retail Domination
Amazon upended retail, but CEO Jeff Bezos -- who just bought The Washington Post for $250 million -- insists it’s still "Day One." What comes next? A relentless pursuit of cheaper goods and faster shipping. The competition is already gasping for breath.
The first thing you notice about Jeff Bezos is how he strides into a room.
A surprisingly diminutive figure, clad in blue jeans and a blue pinstripe button-down, Bezos flings open the door with an audible whoosh and instantly commands the space with his explosive voice, boisterous manner, and a look of total confidence. "How are you?" he booms, in a way that makes it sound like both a question and a high-decibel announcement
Each of the dozen buildings on Amazon's Seattle campus is named for a milestone in the company's history--Wainwright, for instance, honors its first customer. Bezos and I meet in a six-floor structure known as Day One North. The name means far more than the fact that Amazon, like every company in the universe, opened on a certain date (in this case, it's July 16, 1995). No, Day One is a central motivating idea for Bezos, who has been reminding the public since his first letter to shareholders in 1997 that we are only at Day One in the development of both the Internet and his ambitious retail enterprise. In one recent update for shareholders he went so far as to assert, with typical I-know-something-you-don't flair, that "the alarm clock hasn't even gone off yet." So I ask Bezos: "What exactly does the rest of day one look like?" He pauses to think, then exclaims, "We're still asleep at that!"
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