Excerpts 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.

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Silicon 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.

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Questions 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…

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Blogging 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.

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The 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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The Everything Store, Italian Edition

The Everything Store is being translated into over a dozen languages. Today I received copies from the Italian publisher, Hoepli. According to Google, “Vendere tutto” translates into “Sell Out.” I hope that is not quite right…

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The New York Times Review(s)

There’s no better – or tougher – reviewer than Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times. Today she casts her critical eye on The Everything Store. You can read the review here. Update: and here’s author Duff McDonald’s review of the book in the New York Times Book Review.

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More Great Coverage

The Financial Times reviews “The Everything Store.” Sample: “Brad Stone, a technology journalist who first covered Amazon in 2000, has done a remarkable job in The Everything Store, in a way that (Jeff) Bezos would appreciate – by working very hard.” Here’s a fun conversation with Len Edgerly of the Kindle Chronicles podcast. I always enjoy…

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Talking with Author Daniel Pink About the Everything Store

In addition to penning several bestselling books like “To Sell is Human,” author Daniel Pink conducts Q&As with authors as part of his excellent “Office Hours” podcast. I’ve known Dan for about a decade and my fortuitous email to him about coming to Washington D.C. last week turned into this conversation. There are some very…

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How I Found Jeff Bezos’s Biological Father

Children with fractured or nonexistent relationships with one or both of their birth parents are more likely to end up with psychological or behavioral problems—not leading powerful nations, companies, or cultural movements. But in the case of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs — and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — the unusual circumstances of their birth seemingly helped to create an overpowering drive to succeed and to challenge the status quo.

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Grading the Kindle Fire as Amazon’s Tablet Turns Two

Two years ago, Bezos introduced the original Kindle Fire at one of those stereotypical press confabs in New York City. That first device was in many respects a dud. Now Amazon is taking on Google and Apple in the tablet market.

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Amazon Unveils New Kindle Readers

For the last six years, Amazon has constructed a nearly unbreakable hold on the digital-reading market, thanks in part to the company’s Kindle e-readers—and its ability to weave together attractive new features that broaden the reading experience.

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Shocker: Jeff Bezos Buys the Washington Post!

The deal is surprising for a number of reasons. Bezos believes that the Internet is changing the entire business landscape, but so far he has seemed devoted to blazing new paths, not rescuing ailing old media franchises.

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Why Hasn’t the Web Changed the Real Estate Business?

The Internet has eliminated travel agents, decimated classified ads, depressed stock brokers, and taken the swagger out of car dealers, but it hasn’t dented the fortunes of real estate brokers.

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Battered Dreams, Battered Dreamliner

The grounding of the Boeing 787 was in many respects inevitable for a project marked by narrowed visions and provides a dispiriting example of the shrinking tolerance for risk among corporate executives and government regulators.

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Does Jeff Bezos Care About Profits?

The Bezos Doctrine is powerful. New businesses don’t have to be good. They just have to appeal to customers. As long as consumers are consuming and shareholders are buying what Bezos is selling, Amazon looks fairly unbeatable.

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