“The Story of Amazon.com in a nutshell”, that is what this book could easily and accurately be described as. To begin with the book is short and matter of fact; it covers almost all of the things that have happened in its 19 year existence. It covers the rise of Amazon.com and the perils it faced in the process. All the major milestones that the company achieved have also been covered. In short it tells a short story about amazon.com and how it came to be.
Sara Gilbert has done a commendable job in confining the whole story of amazon.com to a mere 65 pages and that is counting the illustrations as well. The story is kept really trim and most of the details irrelevant and not is kept out. In fact the “Story of Amazon.com” is a de-facto account of the evolution of amazon.com and leaves out any personal touch to it. There is no explorations to into the lives of Mr. Bezos nor of any one otherwise connected to the Amazon Story.
Sara does draw our attention to the various problems that the company faced and the long years it spent without ever turning any profit and the dark times it endured during the dot com burst. The hardships are again stated matter of factly and how the company managed to survive these treats not presented inspirationally either. But she does get her points and facts correct and she doesn’t leave anything either except what really helped Amazon.com become an industry leader in its domain. I would personally feel better had the book been a little longer and contained more about the rise of Amazon.com from the American dream perspective. But then again this book is not the ardent analyst, but for the young reader who could learn a lot about entrepreneurship and innovation form the story of Mr. Bezos.
The one thing I especially liked and is quite fascinating about the book is the amount of pictures that they have put in, they can on their own merit tell you the story of amazon.com and they complement the book rather well. One can just browse through these pictures and read the side notes left here and there in the book and understand the whole story that Sara is trying to say. Sara Gilbert has created a rather light hearted book that could be read with nothing more than just the willingness to open the first page, the rest is a fast and well aided journey through the 19 years of amazon.com, more like a tour of the whole thing.
Sara Gilbert clearly has her audience cut out, and she has made it clear that this is not for the serious corporate researcher in you but for the casual reader who would enjoy a little information and may be do with a little inspiration from it too. In fact this is exactly the kind of book I would gift my adolescent son just to get him to read a book.
In Association with JAICO PUBLISHING HOUSE.
