American History 1988
Chapter 384 - 373: The Book Merchant

Chapter 384: Chapter 373: The Book Merchant

The product acceptance of Palm was the last piece of official business that Dean Price handled before Christmas, and his vacation time throughout the year was far shorter than that of others on the Forbes list.

Take Bill Gates, for example, who spent at least two or three months on vacation each year.

As soon as December arrived, he left Seattle to start his Christmas journey.

Compared to them, Dean definitely qualified as a workaholic billionaire.

It wasn’t that he loved work, but there were some things he had to handle personally.

Palm was his first foray into the consumer electronics industry, and of course, it needed his necessary attention.

After making several calls himself and sorting out the distribution channels, Dean felt at ease to leave.

With Hills Department Stores and Walmart as backups, Palm basically could be distributed throughout North America’s major cities.

Dean was even considering leveraging political connections to include Palm in the public institutions’ procurement lists.

Because a large part of the potential users for this kind of handheld computer were in government agencies.

An application for a to-do list schedule was their reason for buying a handheld computer.

Now that Dean had added the feature to sync emails to Palm, he believed it would become the choice of even more people.

However, the specifics would depend on market feedback. At a price of 299 US dollars, this was absolutely revolutionary.

The reason why Dean steadfastly supported Hawkins and their team in mass-producing this generation of products, even with a gross margin of only 33%,

was because he believed that with such a low price, it shouldn’t be a problem for Palm to sell over 100,000 units.

He was looking forward to what surprises Palm would bring him after the New Year. But before that, he would first enjoy a peaceful Christmas holiday.

This year’s Christmas, Dean spent in Florida, of course at the mansion he bought in Palm Beach.

Miranda was pregnant again, and because Washington was too cold, she would stay here all winter.

However, despite being pregnant, Miranda showed a full-fledged desire to work.

On one side was the foundation, and on the other was the planning for the farm; even during the vacation, she was bustling with busyness.

Dean had advised her, but Miranda still couldn’t let go of these matters.

So, to facilitate her office work, Dean simply converted one of the mansion’s rooms into her office.

Computers, satellite phones, a 24/7 assistant, everything was available.

The entire room was decorated with the latest technology, and Dean would occasionally come over to take advantage of the office location.

Using the gaps in the holiday, he also remotely directed Orion Pictures in Hollywood.

After a year of development, the situation at Orion Pictures could only be described as par for the course.

Since Dean took over, Orion Pictures had released four films to date.

Aside from one called "Blue Sky" that got an Oscar nomination, the others were mostly obscure.

The only consolation was that the debt of over one hundred million US dollars had now been reduced to within forty million US dollars.

Dean was reviewing the script library to see what IPs were worth exploring.

As for DreamWorks, it didn’t even have a direction for its first animation production, let alone expect profits.

Having disentangled himself from affairs in Silicon Valley, Dean rarely enjoyed such leisurely times.

He treated the Hollywood business as a kind of diversification from work, without the internet or Microsoft.

Every decision he made didn’t need to consider various external pressures.

Yet this relaxed time was destined not to last long, as he received a call from Durell in January ’96.

Dean had to cut his holiday short and take a private plane detouring to the West Coast.

"You said over the phone there was an investment you couldn’t decide on?" Dean met the energetic Durell in San Francisco.

"About the internet," Durell handed him a glass of red wine, "I’d like to hear your opinion."

Dean’s renown wasn’t solely due to his status as the wealthiest man but also his exceptional investment acumen.

Especially in the realm of the internet, Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists wouldn’t dare claim a higher success rate than his.

Furthermore, Dean had good relations with top-tier venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital, KeyPoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Axel.

So they often exchanged insights about the industry’s development, which included seeking Dean’s opinion on certain investment intentions.

Durell had recently received an unsolicited proposal from a founder. But the business seemed a bit ahead of its time, and he was unsure.

Wary of the lessons from Go company, he now approached overly innovative ideas with much caution.

Since this venture was related to the internet, he wanted to consult Dean’s thoughts.

"OK, let’s hear it. What kind of startup is it?" Dean took the wine and sat down on the sofa.

Many people here in Silicon Valley were still on vacation. Recently, Seattle didn’t seem to stir up any trouble, maybe because of Christmas.

Dean was in a relaxed state and didn’t mind discussing business with Durell.

"An internet shopping company, to be precise, they sell only one type of product: books."

This was precisely what made Durell hesitate. If the other party had truly moved a department store onto the internet, perhaps he wouldn’t be so conflicted.

Durell’s investment style was always bold and, amid the internet wave, he didn’t mind trying out real internet shopping.

But focusing on a books category for online shopping, even for someone with the title of "impromptu investor," it was hard to decide immediately.

However, upon hearing his words, Dean, who was half-reclining on the sofa, suddenly stopped swirling his glass of red wine.

"Books category shopping? Where is this company located? What’s its name?"

"Probably Amazon, based in Seattle," Durell shrugged, "Have you heard of them?"

"No, I just suddenly became a bit interested. Do you want to go have a look together?" Dean suggested, putting down his glass.

"Of course," Durell’s eyebrows raised, his previously nonchalant demeanor now serious.

If Dean was interested in something, then it was worth taking a closer look.

...

Jeff Bezos’s journey into the commercialization of the internet began with his job on Wall Street.

His boss, David Shaw, graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science, and after leaving California, he secured a teaching position at Columbia University.

But the lure of high pay from Morgan Stanley soon made David abandon comfort for Wall Street.

Two years later, he decided to leave and start his own hedge fund.

This was a unique fund, applying the most complex algorithms to secure the best trades.

The scale and speed of its trades could only be accomplished with computers; at its peak, the number of workstations from Sun Microsystems was four times the number of employees in the trading hall.

The staff and equipment worked in shifts, aiming to gain more momentum and profits from the market.

David succeeded, and the immense returns made him rise to fame on Wall Street, with a flood of resumes coming his way.

But David only hired 1% of the applicants, and at the end of 1990, he hired Jeff Bezos.

Bezos was born in New Mexico and grew up in Texas and Florida.

From elementary school, he had a knack for assembling small electronic devices, to being the defensive captain of his high school football team, he could remember all the tactics and had a photographic memory.

His exceptional talent might have been influenced by his grandfather, who was an expert in rocket guidance.

While studying at Princeton University, he considered becoming an astronaut.

However, he also admired those who took risks in the tech industry, and during his time on Wall Street, he heard many legends about giants.

Those who are confident enough and dare to break the boundaries, such as Bill Gates from Microsoft and Dean Price from Bit, and so on.

In his years working on Wall Street, although Bezos was affable, with frequent laughter and calling himself a nerd,

he remained a meticulous analyst—and so in 1994, he was assigned a task by David.

Analyze and evaluate the prospects of the internet, an encounter that seemed almost fated.

Bezos’s creed was to discover market voids and plunge into them; he saw the internet as a massive void.

Soon, someone would be making a lot of money by selling things online, and after several months of research, he began to wonder: why couldn’t that person be himself?

Bezos was taken aback by his own crazy idea; his work on Wall Street was very profitable.

Resigning at that time would mean his handsome bonus for ’94 would pass him by.

Was he truly ready to give up everything for an online retail startup with slim chances of success?

He shared his thoughts with David, who advised him to take some time to think it over before deciding.

So Bezos wrote down a sentence on a piece of paper, "If I were 80 and looking back on this decision, would I regret not trying it?"

The answer was obvious; he knew he wanted to sell products on the internet and understood he couldn’t do it in New York.

Because he had already thought of the kind of goods one could sell online, ones you didn’t need to touch or see in person beforehand.

And they should not be incredibly expensive or fragile—books.

He would become an online bookseller, and Seattle would be the place for his business.

Bezos’s move to the Emerald City was a rational decision of a Wall Street analyst who paid attention to detail.

Most early internet users were in California, but internet rules stipulated that customers must pay state sales tax when shopping online if the company was based in the same state.

With that in mind, Bezos wanted to choose a location with a smaller population and fewer users required to pay additional taxes.

Clearly, Washington’s lack of income tax was icing on the cake for Bezos.

Also, from a logistics standpoint, the West Coast’s largest book distributor was close to Seattle.

So his team wouldn’t need their own warehouse right away; they could just order books and ship them from there.

Furthermore, Bezos had his own little secret: Seattle was home to Microsoft and its thousands of engineers.

Some of the restless ones might leave and join a startup.

If all went well, he would need many engineers.

See, those closest to the river get the moon first.

Bezos’s startup journey was far from smooth, although Amazon did manage to open despite the difficulties.

But they soon encountered their own problem—lack of funds. Hiring staff, stocking inventory, all of these required money.

Bezos held 60 meetings and exerted a lot of effort to persuade, finally raising the initial million dollars from 22 investors.

It was the summer of ’95, and convincing investors to pay up was harder than Bezos had imagined.

"People with even a little understanding of the book industry wouldn’t invest in us," Bezos later complained to his wife.

But with the startup funds in place, Amazon quickly completed its first order.

Its early users were mostly computer enthusiasts, and those kinds of books dominated the website’s bestseller lists.

However, that didn’t last long before other consumers began to swarm in.

As the orders piled up, Bezos had to consider the issue of financing again.

The circumstances he faced made it imperative for him to do so.

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