Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #970821 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Review
"Wonderful....His often vociferous malice is delicious."

Synopsis
The author offers a behind-the-scenes look at Amazon.com, the company he once worked for, exposing the rollercoaster ride that CEO Jeff Bezos set into motion in the mid-1990s.

Customer Reviews

Believe the hype - But make sure to read this too...
This one sits nicely alongside BooHoo, showing the other side of Malmsten's CEO reality. Whilst the superstar CEO flits by concorde from vision to vision and from interview to interview, the thousands in the engine houses of the company live in manic ignorance of the point and truth of it all, sacrificing their free time in super-monitored, artificially lit, service sweatshops, where unions are busted, the unrealistic is expected as routine, and the rumourmill runs on overtime.
No company, no matter how high-tech, makes it without a large number of people, even though this is very rarely the public perception for dotcoms.
Bezos himself comes across as an interesting character, inspiring, modest, humorous, but at the same time either blinkered or calculating with the reality of his company.
Have a think about what really happens betwen you pressing that 1-click button, and the postman calling!

WITLESS DRIVEL...
I bought this book, thinking that it would offer some insight into Amazon.com in terms of what it was like to work there during its halcyon days. Touted as a funny memoir, among other things, I was to discover that it was none of what was promised. In fact, the book was painfully difficult to read, as it was very poorly written, decidedly not funny, and offered little insight into what it really was like to work at Amazon. It was totally sophomoric in terms of what it did say.

The author should be thankful that he was not fired by Amazon, as that is what he richly deserved to have happen based upon his own account of what he was like as an employee. He was a total slacker who treated customers with the contempt that he felt that they deserved. He was totally wasteful of the company's resources. He proudly stole supplies in bulk from the company. When toys were given to him for review purposes, he not only did not bother to review them, he then refused to return the toys to Amazon. He may think that all this is hilarious. Unfortunately, I do not. Reading this drivel felt like it took twenty-one dog years.

Moreover, this book was so poorly written, I am surprised that a reputable publisher went ahead with the expense of actually publishing it. I guess that the name Amazon carries a great deal of weight for which the author should be eternally grateful. I doubt that had he written a book titled, "21 Dog Years: Doing time @ Sears.Com", substituting Sears for Amazon, that he would have found a publisher. Don't waste your time with this drivel. If you want to read a well-written, interesting book about working at Amazon, read "Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot. Com Juggernaut" by James Marcus.

21 Dog Years, it seems.
21 Dog Years, is a good book. At first it starts out as a bored delitant, who want and does nothing and grew up in the middle of nowhere. But then it starts turning into this obssevie person, only living for the world of Amazon.com. It gives you a very different view of how the people work or used to work in the Amazon.com CS department. It is a well written book, wich does not get boring, I would say it gets more and more compeling towards the end. Will he, or won't he..But to find that out, you will have to read the book.