About the Book: Jeff Bezos launched Amazon in 1994 from a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington, choosing the house specifically for its garage so he could emulate their garage-startup heroes and literally begin building an e-commerce giant in that humble space. Inside that makeshift office, electricity became the bottleneck—circuit breakers kept tripping under the load of computers and equipment, prompting Bezos to remark that startups don’t run out of room, they run out of electric power. Amazon’s product review feature—a foundational part of its customer engagement—was coded by Shel Kaphan over a single weekend in June 1995, empowering users to share feedback and inject humor into reviews from the very beginning. Prior to launching the site, Bezos and his wife drove west from New York in 1994, during which he conceptualized Amazon as an online bookstore and prepared for its debut in the garage the next year. These elements—garage origins, technical improvisation, early customer engagement, and bold entrepreneurial vision—encapsulate Amazon’s foundational story of innovation and resourcefulness.
