Jeff Bezos Is Shooting for the Moon

Recently, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos wrote a lengthy letter to the shareholders as a compass reading of the company's trajectory. The engaging and optimistic message is a quick romp through Amazon's evolution from an online bookseller to the defining e-commerce giant. Some of the key points included international expansion, Amazon's three mega-successful side ventures (Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Prime and Amazon Web Services), and the 15,000 warehouse robots assisting order shipments.

So, who is the man steering this revolutionary company since its inception in 1994? Bezos is known for religiously sticking to his guiding principles, which can be summed up into three categories. First and foremost, he is an innovator, willing to experiment and take risks despite cautionary advice. Second, he thinks long-term, purposefully operating within tiny profit margins in order to build scale or fund new projects. Lastly, his customer-centric perspective is an obsession. He is famous for having an empty chair at meetings to represent the customer.

Although the company hasn't been able to make much of a dent in China where Alibaba is king, Amazon reigns in North America, India and parts of Europe. With revenues of US$89 billion in 2014, Amazon is often grouped with Apple and Google into a trio of the mighty new conglomerates.

傑夫•貝佐斯與他的亞馬遜巨人

亞馬遜創辦人暨執行長傑夫．貝佐斯最近寫了一封長信給股東，說明公司發展的軌跡。這份引人入勝且樂觀的訊息快速介紹了亞馬遜從線上書商發展為決定性電子商務巨擘的成功之路。其中一些要點包括國際拓展、亞馬遜三大高度成功的副業投資（亞馬遜市集、亞馬遜至尊會員服務與亞馬遜網路服務），以及一萬五千個協助訂單出貨的倉庫機器人。
那麼，這間革命性的公司自 1994 年創立以來就一直負責掌舵的人是誰呢？貝佐斯以宗教信仰般的堅定態度恪遵自己的指導原則而聞名，其指導原則可歸納為三個類別。第一，同時也是最重要的一點，他是一位創新者，不管他人告誡，仍樂於進行實驗和冒險。第二，他著眼於長期發展，刻意追求微小的淨收益率，以便建立規模或資助新計畫。最後，他對於以顧客為中心的觀點極為執迷。他有個著名的做法，就是在會議中擺一張空椅子代表顧客。
在阿里巴巴稱霸的中國，亞馬遜的生意雖然沒有多少進展，但在北美、印度與歐洲部分地區卻都稱王。亞馬遜 2014 年的營收達 890 億美元，經常與蘋果及 Google 一同歸類為三大新集團。