Chapter 1

Amazon.com—Orchestrating Stretch Demand

How Amazon.com Saved Christmas

During the height of the “Internet bubble,” Amazon.com was one of the hottest new companies around. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s charismatic founder, had a vision that was at the core of Amazon’s success: to get big, fast! He fundamentally believed that the 1990s were a unique time in history, when a new channel called the Internet would gain consumer awareness and become monetized. Bezos also believed that the window of opportunity to get a foothold in the Internet commerce space (or e-commerce, as we now call it) would be short lived. He instinctively knew that the first-mover advantage was absolutely critical to success. Moreover, his vision for Amazon, even in the early ...

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