The Everything Store Write-Up

Josiah Dycus

1. To me, a leader is a person who can effectively manage and guide a group of people to do

bigger and better things under their guidance. This includes leading by example, having

vision, maximizing production from of the group, and encouraging creativity and

innovation in the group. Also, I think a leader must know how to make decisions under

pressure. A leader can’t crack when crisis arises, instead they must instead change their

course of action to adapt to the current circumstances to keep the group growing in the

right direction. In the book The Everything Store, this leader is Jeff Bezos and the group

is a company called Amazon. Amazon started out as an online bookstore and has evolved

into an everything store selling products of all kinds all over the world. The reason for

Amazon’s great success is because of Jeff Bezos’s leadership. Jeff Bezos has vision. He

knew from the very start what he wanted the company to be someday and wasn’t content

to just sell books. He knew the internet was a very powerful resource, and he knew he

could use that to create a technology company that became an online store that truly has

everything. Bezos is passionate and motivates others to work. He does this through a lot

of ways, not all of them the nicest, many of which include competition and constant work

evaluation that could leave employees being fired at any moment. He made almost all the

right decisions: he hired the right people to help him help the company grow, he knew

when to be profitable and when to take losses, he knew when they could have lower

prices, he knew how to beat the competition, and most importantly, he kept the customers

experience and satisfaction at the forefront of the company’s goals.

2. Jeff Bezos’s two strongest leadership attributes are his vision and his decision-making

skills. Jeff Bezos always believed Amazon would be greatly successful in the long-term.
 Even when Amazon was taking great losses as they grew in the 1990’s and many were

saying that Amazon’s business model was never going to be profitable, Bezos kept

innovating and focusing on new ways to generate revenue and ways to cut cost. He

always viewed Amazon as a technology company and not a retail company, and because

of this vision Amazon has created a technology platform in Amazon Web Services that

has revolutionized data processing and cloud storage and is doing amazing things. He

also is an amazing strategist. For example, he came up with the idea of Amazon Prime

which charged consumers $79 per year but gave them two-day free shipping on all

purchases. Bezos knew that Amazon would lose a lot of money with all of the free

shipping, but he understood prime members would become very loyal and would greatly

increase their shopping frequency on Amazon. Bezos’s weakest attributes are that he

hasn’t created the best company culture and his ruthlessness. Amazon is known to work

employees to death and has many times failed to properly reward employees for hard

work. Bezos can also be very ruthless to and cruel to employees when they disappoint

him.

3. I personally don’t think I could work with Jeff Bezos. If I worked with him, I would be in

constant fear that I would be subject to his wrath if I made one little mistake. Bezos also

made creativity and innovation a priority for all employees and that is not a skill of mine.

I would absolutely hate to write all of my presentations as six-page narratives. My brain

is just wired completely different than his. I feel like only a certain type of people can

work for Amazon. I admire his work from afar, and definitely think he is a very great

leader, but I don’t think I could work for him.