JOE KLAMAR/AFP/GETTYIMAGES
Voices
possibilities of the Web to build
a platform that would know more
about the tastes and purchasing
histories of the customer than any
local bookstore.
“I want to transport online
bookselling back to the days of
the small bookseller, who got to
know you very well and would say
things like, ‘I know you like John
PETER S.
GOODMAN
Irving, and guess what, here’s this
new author, I think he’s a lot like
John Irving,’” Bezos told David
Streitfeld in an exceptionally prescient profile published way back
in July 1998 in — as it happens —
the pages of the Washington Post.
You can argue about Bezos and
Amazon’s track record in the years
since, whether and how much
the company’s success reflects its
hard-edged treatment of workers
and regulatory arbitrage in terms
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13
Bezos
introduces
Kindle
Paperwhite
during a press
conference
on Sept.
6, 2012,
in Santa
Monica, Calif.