What will be said about Jeff Bezos as an innovator in the coming years? While Henry Ford had his Model T and Steve Jobs had his iPhone, the Amazon founder’s exact achievements are much more difficult to define.
As a former executive suggests, Bezos’ enduring legacy may be reshaping the innovation business himself.
“We call it the invention machine,” said Colin Bryar, former Bezos technical advisor and co-author of an upcoming book about the company. “Amazon could make decisions when Jeff wasn’t in the room.”
For over a quarter of a century, this machine has been grappling with some of the most ambitious questions a single company has ever faced. How do you create a business that sells everything? How do you build a common supercomputer for everyone? How do you hire half a million people in less than a year?
