Why Amazon is buying MGM for $8.5 billion
In early 2017, Jeff Bezos gathered executives from his Hollywood division, Amazon Studios, and told them, “I want my Game of Thrones.” The chief executive officer was frustrated. The team was developing niche programming like the gender identity drama Transparent and the retro-feminist comedy the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. They lacked the kind of mainstream appeal that might introduce wider audiences…
Read MoreAmazon Unbound In The News
REVIEWS The New York Times, “To Understand Amazon, We Must Understand Jeff Bezos” by Ben Smith The Washington Post, “How did Amazon grow so fast? By thinking outside the shipping box” by Marc Levinson The Seattle Times, “Inside Jeff Bezos’ obsessions” by Shira Ovide ARTICLES, EXCERPTS & INTERVIEWS Mashable: “How Bezos became an asshole, and…
Read MoreThe Secret History of Alexa
Wired Magazine has the second excerpts from Amazon Unbound, on the inception of Alexa, its early challenges, and the secret identity of the actress and singer who lent her voice to Amazon’s disembodied artificial intelligence. Here’s Jeff Bezos’s first ever whiteboard sketch of an Alexa device, circa early 2011.
Read MoreThe Strange Tale of Jeff Bezos and the Single Cow Burger
As Amazon continued to experiment and trial different ways to deliver fresh food and groceries, it faced a mounting problem: fledgling grocery services like Amazon Fresh and Prime Now didn’t offer anything unique, often charged higher prices and weren’t retaining their customers. If Amazon wanted to arouse excitement and loyalty for these programs, it needed something else entirely—like a unique product that customers were passionate about. Well, Bezos had an idea for that as well and it was just as bizarre.
Read MoreA True Story: I won $10,000 in Whole Foods Gift Cards
Out of the blue in 2019, I got a call from Amazon. The person on the line informed me I had won $10,000 in Whole Foods gift cards, part of a sweepstakes I was entered into by using my Amazon credit card at the organic grocer. Obviously, I figured it was a scam. I called…
Read MoreJeff Bezos to Step Aside as Amazon CEO
When Bezos announced in February 2021 that he would cede the CEO chair to deputy Andy Jassy, I wrote this opening essay for Bloomberg Businessweek.
Read MoreHow Jeff Bezos Beat the Tabloids
The first excerpts from Amazon Unbound are out and on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek! It’s a selection from Chapter 13, Complexifiers, on the saga that enveloped Jeff Bezos and Amazon in late 2018 and early 2019. It’s a tale that involves a scheming Hollywood manager, desperate tabloid newspaper editors, and spurious claims of political…
Read MoreThe Amazon Unbound Virtual Book Tour
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be “appearing” around the country to talk about Amazon Unbound, Jeff Bezos, and all the beautiful awkwardness that comes with writing and promoting a book from my garage during a pandemic. Please join me at an upcoming event, ask questions, and tell me how you feel about Amazon and…
Read MoreContact
Use this information to get in touch with Brad Stone or his representatives.
Read MoreAuthor’s Note
Writing books about fast-growing technology companies is a little like jumping from a highway overpass onto a speeding train. Sometimes you manage to hit the caboose and hang on for dear life, your work remaining relevant for a few glorious years. But other times, things change so rapidly that you miss the moment entirely, and your account is left to dangle as a historical curiosity, an account of an enterprise that no longer really exists in its current form.
Read MoreAmazon Unbound
From the bestselling author of The Everything Store, an unvarnished picture of Amazon’s unprecedented growth and its billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, revealing the most important business story of our time.
Read MoreBrad Stone
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.
Read MoreBrad Stone, “Amazon’s Secret Sauce”
Author of “The Everything Store”, Brad Stone sits down with Bloomberg’s Shira Ovide to discuss what makes Amazon tick. This conversation was recorded on December 4, 2018 at the CB Insights TRANSFORM conference.
Read MoreSimon & Schuster to Publish Brad Stone’s New Book on Amazon
NEW YORK, March 14—Simon & Schuster will publish bestselling author and renowned journalist Brad Stone’s AMAZON UNBOUND, it was announced today. Publication date is scheduled for fall 2021.
Read MoreLinkedIn Speaker Series: Brad Stone
In the spirit of iconic Silicon Valley renegades like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, another generation of entrepreneurs is using technology to upend convention and disrupt entire industries. These are the upstarts, idiosyncratic founders with limitless drive and an abundance of self-confidence. The Upstarts is the definitive story of Uber and Airbnb, two new titans…
Read MoreThe Upstarts
Amid the throngs at the January 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama, two groups of entrepreneurs were there not just to witness history but to make it. Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk were in the national mall that day, promoting a website called Airbed&Breakfast.com.
Read MoreExcerpts from The Upstarts, Volume 2: The Real Origins of Uber
The ride-hailing company Uber Technologies was invented by a Canadian and originally coded in Mexico. An excerpt from the book on Uber’s origins in The Guardian, published just as the world is taking a new look at Uber’s character amid charges of complicity with the Trump administration.
Read MoreExcerpts of The Upstarts, Volume 1: The Secret Weapons of Uber and Airbnb
Excerpts of The Upstarts are out today in Bloomberg Businessweek. This includes material from the introduction and chapters four and eight. And more is coming soon!
Read MoreSilicon Valley Reckons with its Political Power
Technology’s transformation of society seems to be speeding up. And now we know where it all leads: to the 25th floor of Trump Tower, and a central spot in the national dialogue over an evolving economy, with all its accompanying winners and losers. My opening essay in the 2016 year end issue of Bloomberg Businessweek.
Read MoreThe Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn’t content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store—a store that offered limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition that transformed retail in the same…
Read MoreThe Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World
Amid the throngs at the January 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama, two groups of entrepreneurs were there not just to witness history but to make it. Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk were in the national mall that day, promoting a website called Airbed&Breakfast.com. Meanwhile Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp sat with friends in…
Read MoreThe Uber Slayer: the True Story of China’s Didi
Didi was one of dozens of ridesharing startups that sprouted in China in early 2012. Here’s a Businessweek cover story on how it out maneuvered them all and then went head to head with Uber.
Read MoreWelcome to Larry Page’s Flying Car Factories
A summer 2016 cover story in Bloomberg Businessweek on Larry Page’s secret flying car skunkworks with my pal Ashlee Vance.
Read MoreHere’s the Guy Behind Apple’s Enormous Chip Business
A February, 2016 profile of Cupertino’s chief chipmaker, Johny Srouji, for Bloomberg Businessweek.
Read MoreUber and the Invasion of the Taxi Snatchers
Uber has managed to become one of the most loved and controversial startups of the smartphone age. A Bloomberg Businessweek cover story.
Read MoreFacebook Turns 10: the Mark Zuckerberg Interview
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and CEO, has many reasons to be grateful as his company turns 10 – and a few reasons to remain scared. A Bloomberg Businessweek cover story.
Read MoreThe Bitcoin Mining Arms Race Heats Up
Bitcoin is the digital currency that thrills nerds, inspires libertarians, and incites the passions of economists who debate the value of money made from nothing but ones and zeroes. A Bloomberg Businessweek cover story.
Read MoreQuestions for Book Clubs About The Everything Store
I recently heard from a reader who was organizing a book club discussion of The Everything Store. “I couldn’t find any great resources, so I thought I’d take a chance and email you and see if you, as the author, have any suggestions,” she asked. After thinking about it a bit, I offered these 10…
Read MoreBlogging The Everything Store: Amazon is Santa Claus
On the Web, the grind and chaos of retail’s biggest day will be invisible—hidden hundreds of miles away, inside the massive warehouses of juggernauts like Amazon.com and Wal-Mart.
Read MoreThe Everything Store Wins ‘Business Book of the Year’
I’m delighted to report that The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon has won Business Book of the Year, awarded annually by the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs. Here’s the FT’s story about the evening, and some embarrassing photos of the ceremony which was hosted by Lionel Barner, FT editor, Lloyd Blankfein,…
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