Cruising Inside Amazon

It's like a three-ring circus that adds more rings each day

"BMVP2000"

The phrase sits there on the giant monitors, and 2,000 Amazonians packing the Seattle Westin for a quarterly "all hands" meeting listen raptly while Jeff Bezos explains what it means. There are two types of businesses, he tells the troops: baby businesses, which need growth and feeding, and adult businesses, which must pay their own way. This brings him to B, M and V, which stand for books, music and video, Amazon's three oldest product lines. And the P is the news, for this trinity is nearing adulthood. "By the end of the year 2000," Bezos says, "we're going to...

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