The Tipping Point: How Amazon Reached It and Why This Startup Hasn’t
Note to Self
WNYC Studios
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 December 2013
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For this Christmas edition of New Tech City, a look back at two of our favorite segments from 2013. If you're like millions of other shoppers, you probably ordered at least a few gifts on the online retailer Amazon this holiday season. And even if your packages weren't delivered by drones, you won't want to miss my interview with Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Brad Stone about his book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. And it's not just about how Bezos's ingenious (sometimes controversial) tactics for selling us everything under the sun, but also insights into the CEO's aspirations for space travel and the giant clock he's building in a remote part of the world. Plus, a look at the startup Nextdoor, it wants to be a kind of Facebook for neighborhoods. Will you be its friend?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Manouche, and this is New Tech City. |
| 0:03.9 | And looking back on 2013, there were two stories that really stuck with me. |
| 0:09.2 | So they're getting an on-hore this week. |
| 0:11.5 | It's the holiday season, and you probably bought or opened a gift that was ordered from |
| 0:16.9 | this man. |
| 0:17.9 | Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. |
| 0:21.8 | Companies come and go. |
| 0:23.1 | I would love for it to be after I'm dead. |
| 0:26.1 | You know, you just want to steer way clear of Amazon's future roadmap. |
| 0:32.1 | Brad Stone is his unofficial biographer, and he tells us about Bezos' aspirations for |
| 0:36.9 | space travel and Bezos' slightly shady tactics for upending the way we buy everything here |
| 0:44.0 | on Earth. |
| 0:45.0 | But first, I want to share with you again the investigation I did in August. |
| 0:49.9 | And how technology can or can't change the way we talk to the people around us. |
| 0:55.4 | No, not our friends, our family, or even our co-workers, but our neighbors. |
| 1:00.6 | That's me. |
| 1:01.6 | I'm living on this block, 31 years, on this block, around the corner, the rest of my life, |
| 1:08.2 | you know. |
| 1:09.2 | The woman you just heard is my neighbor, Joe. |
| 1:12.1 | So that's all I ever do is sit on the stoop with the kids. |
| 1:14.7 | Joe spends a lot of her time on the stoop of her apartment building, sitting in her green |
| 1:19.2 | canvas folding chair, smoking cigarettes, and keeping tabs on our block in Brooklyn. |
... |
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