• The Everything Store

  • Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
  • By: Brad Stone
  • Narrated by: Pete Larkin
  • Length: 13 hrs
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (15,791 ratings)

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The Everything Store  By  cover art

The Everything Store

By: Brad Stone
Narrated by: Pete Larkin
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Publisher's summary

Audie Award Finalist, Business/Educational, 2014

The definitive story of Amazon.com, one of the most successful companies in the world, and of its driven, brilliant founder, Jeff Bezos.

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, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now.

Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, giving listeners the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. Compared to tech's other elite innovators - Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg - Bezos is a private man. But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing.

The Everything Store will be the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.

©2013 Brad Stone (P)2013 Hachette Audio

Featured Article: Big Ideas in Business and Tech


Even the most successful entrepreneurs had to start somewhere. When it comes to groundbreaking technology, the people who became leading business executives often began as lone visionaries with nothing but an idea. Now that they’re global industry leaders, many of them have shared their amazing stories in memoirs. These tales of heartbreak and triumph will bring you along on the roller-coaster of success, all the while showing you the secrets of how business greats transformed their dreams into reality. Read on to find your next great inspiration!

What listeners say about The Everything Store

Average customer ratings
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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    9,493
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Story
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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I loved the way that the story was told

I loved Amazon's story and loved, even more, the way it was told in this book. It was impartial. It showed the good and the bad side.

The main thing I take away from this book is the fact that Amazon started selling books. Look at how they are now. They never lost sight of their vision to be The Everything Store.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Amazon from the beginning

the book gives a detailed timeline of Amazon's rise and of the unique vision of it's creator, Jeff Bezos. included are unusual details of Bezos' childhood and young adulthood and relationship with his biological father. a solid bio

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Great Read

I learned so much about Amazon and Bezos, and I want to pick up the next book shortly.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Never stop positive progression

I loved the story story that was brought forth in this book. I wanted to know what was the beginning the middle to now because obviously it is important to know how big something can be if you keep at it.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

You’ll either end up hating or respecting Amazon

I used to have enormous respect for Amazon. I even wanted to work there and have applied for several jobs over the years. Equally I used to have a lot of respect for Jeff Bezos too.

While I still respect Jeff Bezos and Amazon I do so, in a purely functional fashion, respect for what he has achieved from nothing versus living in awe of him as a person like I kind of do for other CEOs and high level achievers.

But this book has shown me that Amazon would be a terrible company to work for, not because I don’t necessarily fit in the Jeff Bezos way of doing things, but the way they treat others, their staff, their suppliers and manufacturers. It appears to be done with the customer at the centre of everything, which sounds admirable, but this isn’t everything. One example is the knife manufacturer where Amazon not only continued to sell against their own pricing structure in order to save the companies brand but actively worked to destroy them for not selling their products at lower prices. Amazon decidedly went beyond to ensure that the customer got the cheapest possible product even if the competitive product was listed fraudulently on their website from other third-party vendors.

The other example is how they treat their own staff. In a slight digression is the example of Zappos, which illustrates my point. I believe it is Tony Shay, who stated people should be happy to be paid under standard rates in exchange for enjoying and participating in the culture. Sounds like a bad culture to me. It is attitudes like this and the way companies like Amazon treat staff that has created the common trend of “Quiet quitting”. People are burned out, society is burned out at being forced to work extreme hours to line the pockets of somebody else. While it is good to be a part of something big, participants should be equally rewarded

As I said, I once thought I wanted to work at Amazon, but a few hours into reading this book I realize that I would never want to work at Amazon. I would not be treated fairly. I would become a terrible person and that’s not how I want to be.

Of course, I will continue to buy products from Amazon but I don’t think it’s a ‘cool company’ anymore. I don’t think it’s a nice place to shop and they’re not a nice company. The behind-the-scenes behaviours clearly show that. I buy from Amazon because maybe they have cheaper pricing, but it is a purely functional relationship for me.

Now onto the book itself. This appears to be well written, I did enjoy the content the story, and I like how much detail Brad Stone has gone into about the company’s history and how they operate. I would like to read the second part if Brad would write it, which would be something like 2012 to 2022.

I would recommend this book, but I would also recommend that you do so with caution as it may just make you hate Amazon a little bit more.

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Not a good book to me

The delivery and writing are atrocious in my opinion. It gets better near the end but it just didn't compel me.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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a great history of amazon

this tells the story of bests and amazon. it details the amazon start up and struggles to grow into a powerhouse. it also details the drive and personality of bests. it ends around 2014. a postscript or follow on story detailing his divorce and moving away from amazon would complete the book.

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Brilliant and Informative

This book is super informative and documents Jeff Bezos / Amazon in a sort of biographical / documentary - esque book. The author really did his research and gave a superb presentation.

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Great business read

A great close-up look at the amazing journey of Jeff Bezos.
Lots of good learning nuggets for any aspiring titan of their industry.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Warning, this book will keep you engaged

This book does an excellent job of dissecting the very complicated entity known as Amazon. You may leave confused though. Is Amazon good or bad. Friend or Foe. Missionary or mercenary?

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