贝佐斯传记揭示亚马逊CEO的另一面

    没人比杰夫•贝佐斯自己更明白亚马逊这种文化可能具有的潜在破坏性。在这本书中，斯通首次重磅披露了一份贝佐斯写给公司管理团队的备忘录，名字叫“亚马逊—爱”。贝佐斯研究了为什么有些公司【比如苹果、耐克（Nike）、迪士尼（Disney）和谷歌（Google）】受人喜爱，而令一些公司【比如沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）、微软（Microsoft）、高盛（Goldman Sachs）和埃克森美孚（Exxon Mobil）】就不那么招人喜欢。斯通还在书中贴出了贝佐斯制作的一张表，表上罗列了他认为导致人们的这种感知的一些特质，比如“打败小虾米没什么了不起的”，“打败更大的、不讨人喜欢的家伙才了不起”等。这张表和贝佐斯的这种做法非常有意思，因为它展示了贝佐斯超理性的一面与他的分析能力。同时这份文件也明白无误地暗示了贝佐斯的结论：亚马逊要明白如何展现出那些“酷”的特质，好让公司讨人喜欢，而不是招人厌恶。最后他建议由一名“有想法的副总”去研究这个问题。

    其实，这本书对亚马逊并不是只有负面的描述，只有这些爆料才是。书中的其余部分全面描述了贝佐斯是打造这家公司的历程，以及他的商业战略战术，他的招聘方法，他搞定华尔街、开拓新市场的过程。从书中来看，贝佐斯就像一块信息的海绵，一个不耻下问的人，甚至愿意接近经验老道的竞争对手，从他们身上汲取知识。（这也是贝佐斯与乔布斯共有的特质之一，读这本书的时候也不禁让我们惆怅乔帮主的英年早逝，否则我们还能看到这两位豪杰斗智斗勇的场面。）对于任何一个行业的企业家和管理人员来说，不管他们想不想模仿亚马逊的文化，这本书对他们仍然很有吸引力。如果你不了解贝佐斯的故事，那么可以说你现在还没有真正了解创立或运作一家企业所要付出的代价。

    对于一直非常关注亚马逊的人来说，书中也有一些细节是他们之前就已经了解了的。我在2012年《财富》的一篇封面报道中就提到过贝佐斯要求亚马逊的高管团队在每次会议开始前要准备6页纸的备忘录，然后在会议刚开始时，整个管理团队都在一片寂静中默默地读材料。另外彼得•艾尔金也曾在《财富》的一篇文章中写过亚马逊的避税策略，他的描写要比斯通更加详细。斯通就职的《彭博商业周刊》（Businessweek）也从斯通的书中摘录了一段关于贝佐斯生父的秘闻。

    从总体上，斯通的这本传记对贝佐斯和亚马逊公司的描写比很多杂志文章都有过之而无不及。从斯通的笔触中可以看出，贝佐斯可能有冷酷的一面，但他同时也是个魅力十足的人，而且心地也非常善良。在亚马逊工作虽然要吃不少苦头，但是在斯通的书中，很多员工也把在亚马逊工作的经历称作职业生涯最有收获的日子——这一点也和乔布斯的苹果公司给人的感觉很像。

    亚马逊已经成了这个时代最出色的公司之一，贝佐斯也是当代最杰出的商人之一。无论这家公司，还是这个男人，两者现在都正值盛年，未来还有多年的广阔作为。现在他们也有一本能够配得上他们份量的传记了。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎   

    No one is more aware of the potentially damaging aspects of Amazon's culture than Jeff Bezos himself. In the most shocking revelation in his meticulously reported book, Stone gets hold of a memo Bezos wrote for his management team titled "Amazon.love." Bezos sought to analyze why some companies, like Apple, Nike, Disney, and Google, are loved and others, including Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and Exxon Mobil are not. Stone publishes an entire spreadsheet in which Bezos listed some of the qualities that drive these perceptions, such as "Defeating tiny guys is not cool," and "Defeating bigger, unsympathetic guys is cool." The list and the entire exercise are fascinating because they show Bezos's ultra-rational and analytical mind in action. The document also lays bare Bezos's implied conclusion: Amazon needs to figure out how toappear to embrace the cool qualities that will allow it to be loved and not hated. He ends by suggesting that a "thoughtful VP" study the matter.

    Not everything in this book paints Amazon in a negative light -- just the juiciest stuff. The rest of the book is a thorough explication of how Bezos built the company, his strategic and tactical methods, his approach to hiring, how Amazon navigated Wall Street, and how it approaches new markets. It shows Bezos to be a sponge for information, and a fearless inquisitor, approaching even seasoned competitors to soak up knowledge from them. (This is one of the many qualities Bezos shares with Jobs, and reading this book is another opportunity to lament that Jobs isn't still around so that we could watch these two gladiators go after each other.) Whether or not they want their companies to emulate Amazon's culture, entrepreneurs and managers from any industry will want to read this book. If you aren't up to speed on the Bezos playbook, then you aren't current with what it takes to start or run or a business.

    Not everything in this book will be new to the careful student of Amazon. In a Fortune cover story in 2012, I wrote about the six-page narratives that Bezos requires Amazon executives to prepare for meetings and that are then read, in study-hall-like silence, at the meeting's outset.Peter Elkind's exhaustive article about Amazon's tax-collection dodging, also in Fortune, is more detailed than Stone's. And Stone's own employer, Bloomberg Businessweek, scooped some of the choicest revelations about Bezos's biological father in a long excerpt from his book.

    In its totality, however, Stone's book delivers so much more on the man and the company than can fit in even many magazine articles. Bezos may be ruthless, but he also is charming and genuinely kind-hearted, according to Stone's telling. Amazon is a tough place to work, yet Stone describes many employees calling their time there the most rewarding of their careers -- another echo of the Steve Jobs/Apple experience.

    Amazon has become one of the leading companies of our day and Bezos one of the most outstanding business leaders. The company and man -- each of which have years of productivity ahead of them -- now have a book that equals their achievements.