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Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot.Com Juggernaut
The New Press Search The New Press by James Marcus Search James Marcus
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating glimpse behind the homepage
How post-modern to be writing a review on Amazon about a book by the man who wrote reviews on Amazon!
As a long-time customer intrigued by the mystique surrounding one of the few enduring dot-com successes, I thought this would be a good holiday read. As an accomplished literary editor, James Marcus can write. I found his deliberations on Ralph Waldo Emerson a little tiresome; but his vivid descriptions of what life at Amazon was like from the very early days are compelling.
He recreates the heady buzz of "making history" wonderfully. He and his colleagues become characters in a micro-serfs-like drama - but far more exciting, energised and real than Copeland's fiction. As synonomous as Amazon has become with e-tailing just about anything, it is bizarre to read about how ground-breaking the introduction of music was to an online bookseller (Project X!)
As employee #55, Marcus held a position of quite some responsibility - spending a considerable time managing the Amazon homepage (in the days before Jeff's personalisation obsession created the Amabot). He eventually rose to Head of Literature and Fiction in an organisation that once employed over 8,000 people.
As the internet buble burst, you can really feel the combination of disbelief and misplaced optimism that many Amazonians felt as the lay-offs began. Towards the end of the book I felt genuine sympathy for the demise of the `Editors' due to pressure from "the MBAs", customer reviews and the pervasive personalisation Amabot.
This is a well-written insight into an internet and business legend that will entertain anyone who's thought `I wonder what it's like to work at Amazon'.
THE RISE OF A RETAIL GIANT...
This is a marvelously written book about the early days of Amazon by one who was employed there in the capacity of editor. This is an insider's observation of an e-commerce leviathan's rise from obscurity. The author reflects on the heady, halcyon days when Amazon was just a newly minted internet book seller, hoping to make its mark. The reader can almost taste the author's enthusiasm for the time he spent working for Amazon in those early days. Who wouldn't be enthusiastic, having worked for a company that gave its employees stock options that, at the height of the dot.com craze, were worth millions.
It was not, however, just about the money. It was also about the opportunity to be on the ground floor of a business that would change the retailing community forever. It was about the camaraderie and the solidarity in those early days, as the employees all wore many hats. The author lets the reader sneak a peek at job interviews. He allows the reader to sit in on staff meetings with him, as well as trade shows, corporate picnics, and retreats that were like pep rallies. It is a most intriguing birds-eye view.
As Amazon grew and changed, so did the author's position as editor. Then, the death knell began ringing for the editors, when the concept of customer reviews developed and grew, becoming a cultural phenomenon unto itself, laying the groundwork for the obsolescence of the job of editor as it was originally constituted. Moreover, the freewheeling, by the seat of your pants operation of Amazon had given over to a more corporate structure. The author worked at Amazon from 1996 to 2001, and his nostalgic reminiscences make for absorbing reading. Those who are devotees of Amazon will find this well-written book heady stuff, indeed.
Case History of Innovation and Editorial-Business Conflicts 
If you read the business press after a start-up has blossomed, everything is very neat and tidy. The actual process of becoming a healthy company is much messier than that, filled with unexpected changes, false moves and painful retreats. Amazonia is the first book I have read about Amazon.com that captures the process of its development from an insider's perspective as the company grew from a fledgling in books to a powerhouse across many product categories.
At the same time, the book does an even better job of capturing the inherent conflicts between editors and those seeking to optimize profits in any publishing related enterprise. Being an on-line bookstore that turned into on-line mall only served to make the conflict sharper and more painful for the editors.
I must admit that I liked Amazon.com much better when it was a book-only site. The commitment then to having quality reviews by excellent editors made the site seem like visiting a knowledgeable independent bookstore where you knew the people could be trusted to give you good advice. Putting in the editorial reviews now on books is only a partial substitute for that element of Amazon.com's past. The silly recommendations of the software just clutter up the pages now. I was very glad to see that Mr. Marcus dealt with this issue so well. Amateur reviewers will be intrigued about what he has to say about us.
Finally, the book looks at how the wealth that a successful start-up creates affects those who work for the company. Like many early employees (Mr. Marcus was #55), he left when his original, pre-IPO options were all vested. The price he paid for that wealth in his personal life isn't fully clear, but you get a sense that working at Amazon.com didn't help matters.
Although Mr. Marcus has a powerful story to tell and can turn a phrase and a sentence quite well, the book's organizational structure leaves a lot to be desired. I graded the book down accordingly.
Casual fans of Amazon.com will enjoy reading about the background behind all of those decisions that puzzled us at the time. What were they thinking? For those who are newer Amazon.com fans, the book has considerable early history covering 1996-1999 that will entertain and enlighten.
A Humanist In The Dark Wood of the Internet Boom
James Marcus, author of "Amazonia:Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot.Com. Juggernaut", compares his role as a humanist/editor at Amazon with Ralph Waldo Emerson's life and work. He felt Emerson had looked at the history of idealistic thought before coming up with his own version. Ralph Waldo Emerson's Theory of Everything:
" Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable, as language, sleep, madness, dreams,, beasts, sex"
How does this relate to Amazon, hang on this is going to be a fun ride!
In 1996, Marcus James, author, lived in Portland, Oregon with his wife and baby son. He was trying to support them all with his writing and not succeeding. He received an offer to apply for a job at this new Dot.com, Amazon. He flew to Seattle- met with Jeff Bezos in the small building that had doors as desks. The interview with Jeff was a bit bizarre- Jeff asked everyone what their SAT scores were and also included some esoteric questions. James did well and asked a question of his own, knowing Jeff's first job was working with Hedge Funds. He asked for an explanation of Hedge Funds, and how they worked. He was also interviewed by almost everyone else at Amazon and felt the excitement in the place.
After a bit of time, James and family were ensconced in Seattle . James was the first senior editor to write reviews of the books Amazon was selling. He met some extraordinary people and had good success. He was in at the beginning, housing in a warehouse, and saw Amazon grow from a small group of 40 or so to thousands and thousands of employees. He saw the growth from email account with CompuServe or crash-prone AOl to high-speed computer software that does everything. He and the rest of the employees all went to the warehouse at Christmas time and helped wrap and pack books. They roamed all over the warehouse for each order and learned the works . James saw the explosive rise of Amazon.com and the traumatic fall, where all of his colleagues were looking over their back waiting for the "pink" slip. James survived at Amazon, and if it was not for the death of his marriage, and a new found love, he might still be there. He tells us about these colleagues, their quirks and successes. His first trip to the Chicago Book Fair, and his time manning the Amazon.com booth. The funny stories of their retreats and company picnics. The goofy things that happened, the fun and excitement of a new start-up.
This is not a tell-all book, James wrote and perfected the first 45 word review known as" haiku of book criticism." I am a reviewer at Amazon, and I have great interest in how the gold stars, rankings and Jeff Bezos philosophy "Every day is the first day of Amazon, COM." works. This is an inside look at Amazon- the fun and the freakiness. A book hard to put down.
James Marcus is an excellent writer- informative, funny and precise. I finished the book feeling like I have met people who worked at a succesful company that includes community and understands the real world of commerce. prisrob
Being a literary editor at Amazon in the heyday
There are "editors" at Amazon today, but what they mostly do is censor reviews by Amazon.com customers. There was, however, a Hellenic time not too many years ago when euphoria wafted across dot.com land like the heady scent of flowers in springtime, and nobody really knew what they were doing, and everybody was going to get filthy rich.
It was then in 1996 that James Marcus, literary type, was lured to Amland to bring, he thought, some literary class to a commercial venture. He was thus among the original denizens of Amazonia, #77 on the hired list--a list that eventually included over eight thousand names. Hired to write quickie reviews and interview writers and blurb up the Amazon pages, Marcus also learned how to answer e-mail cheerily and helpfully, how to change the content on Amazon's pages, and occasionally how to stuff product into boxes for shipping.
One can see that Marcus was a little older, noticeably less geeky, and somewhat of a literary dandy compared to his fellow stock option holders. One can further see that he played the game with an eye on the exit and was never completely comfortable being a corporate cog. I was reminded of the strong allegiance to the corporate family that the modern corporation demands of its white-collar types, the long hours, the frequent meetings and the morale- and team-building conferences, the pep rallies, the employee trips and outings, etc.
The story here is not a tell-all (although there are some juicy tidbits) nor is it a chronicle of the rise and fall, and rise again of one of the Internet's stellar giants. Instead it is a very personal tale of being hired by Amazon in 1996, what he did, whom he met and worked with, what they said and did, and why he eventually left. His own personal rise and fall of fortune, peaking at about $9-million early in the year 2000 (consisting mostly of unvested stock options that he couldn't yet sell) and ending during the meltdown, is an interesting one nonetheless, and Marcus tells it well. As a literary type, he takes his time to polish the prose and use authentic diction; and there is considerable evidence of a brow-knitted search for le bon mot, which he often finds. Mainly, he has uncluttered the text and attended to the reader's needs, and so the story flows.
One can see, of course, that this was premeditated. Marcus knew he was going to write about his experiences at Amazon as soon as he was hired, or perhaps before. That is, he took notes while he whistled while he worked, which is why he can simulate conversations eight years old and can recall the exact titles of books he chased down in Amazon.com's mammoth Dawson Street warehouse.
But one is struck by how downright mundane Marcus gets at times. Here he is at the warehouse doing the obligatory help-out during the Christmas rush. He's talking about the employees who ship the stuff year round. He says, "They considered themselves the core of the business, the extreme employees. Yet they weren't being rewarded with stock options like their white-collar counterparts. It made for the occasional display of territorial rudeness." And then he gives us some action and conversation that amounts to "a tall guy with a tongue stud" standing in his way and not responding to his "can I get by?"
Not exactly exhilarating stuff, and to be honest, some of this will bore a lot of readers.
More interesting is this story: Marcus was at a morale-building ski trip conference in his first year at Amazon. He joined a group at the hotel bar playing a parlor game in which you have to name a movie star of the same sex that you would have sex with. Jeff (the Jeff) was in the group. Guess whom Jeff Bezos named? Indiana Jones! (That would be Harrison Ford.)
Marcus's portrait of CEO and visionary Jeff Bezos is carefully if sketchily drawn, and Marcus seems to get as much of Jeff into the book as he can. There is Jeff planning, scheming, laughing, flying everywhere, appearing, speaking, guiding, cajoling, mesmerizing, seemingly having a lot of fun. Jeff even worked (briefly for show, of course) in the warehouse running a cart up and down the aisles "picking" books to send to customers.
Marcus recounts some of Jeff's mistaken purchases (what's a few hundred million dollars more or less?), and reports on once seeing Jeff give an employee a public dressing down. But mostly we see Jeff at something close to play: Jeff genially allowing himself to be dunked at a company picnic (by employees throwing a ball at a target), Jeff in a hula skirt, etc. Indeed, Marcus finds nothing negative to say (or show) about one of the Internet's most powerful moguls. One gets the sense that Jeff never showed his claws in Marcus's presence or that Marcus is being more than careful.
In the Epilogue, we see Jeff playing tennis against Anna Kournikova in a PR stunt while Marcus watches, the manuscript of this book under his arm, hoping to get Jeff's attention and hand it to him.
In the final analysis what Marcus finds out about Amazon is that it's "always day one" (one of Jeff's slogans) and what really counts is "monetizing those eyeballs" and "revenue velocity."
Bottom line: a little too precious at times, a little too mundane, but overall a good read that will especially appeal to dot.com watchers and Amazonians, past and present.
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