Fueling the Flame of Innovation

When I first met Jeff Bezos 13 years ago, he had recently left Wall Street to launch Amazon.com, his online bookstore, and was operating it out of a Pioneer Square warehouse. Sitting in his tiny office at a desk made from an unfinished door placed on two sawhorses, he explained the simple logic of his business model. While Barnes and Noble paid high rents for downtown bookstores that offered a small selection of books to a limited market, Amazon.com, working in its low-rent surroundings, could offer an endless selection of books to a virtually unlimited global market.

Bezos had great ideas and a deep understanding of technology. But at the time, it didn’t look to me like Amazon.com would have much staying power; anyone could start a web business selling books with relatively little capital. How would Amazon differentiate itself? Indeed, when Barnes and Noble launched its own website not long afterward, many analysts assumed Amazon would soon fold.

Today, of course, Amazon.com is a global leader in online commerce and a pioneer in the rapidly growing field of cloud computing. And it’s shaking up the publishing world with the Kindle, its electronic book reader. It’s hard to overestimate the impact Bezos’ innovations have had on the world. And his influence continues to grow every year.

Yet, when I met with Bezos recently, he looked unchanged from the man I last interviewed in 1996. He’s still slim and youthful, still insists that employees use unfinished doors for desks and he still has this wonderful loud laugh that periodically bursts out. His eyes sparkle when he talks ideas.

So what makes Bezos different from all those other people out there with great ideas? It’s all in the execution. Bezos identified customer service as his competitive advantage early on and focused relentlessly on introducing new innovations to maintain that edge. Although Amazon.com dominates the online book business today, Bezos keeps pushing to expand the book selection, improve order fulfillment and deepen the user experience. He continues to drive down costs so he can offer competitive prices. He provided second-hand books from third-party booksellers-even though that approach meant undercutting his own products-because he knew easy availability was a feature customers would appreciate. The Kindle, he says, was another effort to better serve customers.

As we celebrate innovators, it’s important not to forget the importance of execution. We need people with ideas who understand the new possibilities technology has to offer, but we also need entrepreneurs who can manage people and help those ideas take shape in the real world. The ideal innovator is that rare man or woman who has a combination of great ideas, technology understanding, management skills and entrepreneurial drive. Jeff Bezos is one such individual.