Special: Amazon Unbound (with Brad Stone)

Brad Stone joins us to discuss the making of the modern Amazon, and how it's morphed from the "flywheel company" of The Everything Store into a set of interlocking and self-reinforcing businesses that extended both wider and deeper into the global economy than anyone ever imagined. (except perhaps Jeff Bezos) Is Amazon the Standard Oil of our time, or maybe something much, much bigger? Tune in as we dive in! 

Sponsors:

• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC

 Topics covered:

• When and why Brad decided The Everything Store needed a sequel
• The process of writing the book and access he got at Amazon, including S-Team executives like Dave Clark
• The evolution of Amazon's core strategy from the flywheel into a set of "interlocking and self-reinforcing businesses", and how Brad landed on that as the key theme for the book
• Amazon's culture and the evolution from "Jeff-bots", and its embodiment in S-team members and company leaders beyond
• Amazon's investments in Video and why Bezos was ahead of the pack in realizing its strategic importance (including the rumored as-of-recording MGM deal)
• Amazon's secretive "Campfire" event and why Amazon does it despite its very un-Amazon price tag
• Brad's take on the future of three major Amazon business lines: Video, International and Marketplace / 3rd Party Sellers
• Amazon and Bezos's intense focus on competitors, despite the "theater" of their mantra to only focus on customers
• The Bezos "lapses of judgment" in 2018-19 and what it was like reporting on all the craziness around it
• Tracking down the "voice of Alexa" Nina Rolle, and Bezos's relationship with Elon!

Links:

• Amazon Unbound (on Amazon, natch):  https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Unbound-Invention-Global-Empire/dp/1982132612/