According to Forbes, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, has become the world’s richest man, with a net worth estimated at more than $167bn. And his Seattle-based company has become the second corporation to be valued by Wall Street at $1tn (after Apple). Amazon has successfully branched out from e-commerce into offering cloud computing services and with its biggest-ever acquisition, the $13.7 billion takeover of Whole Foods and its opening of bricks and mortar bookstores its physical presence is being very much felt in shopping malls across the US.
In the video below, we see Jeff Bezos in an unplanned interview given back in 1997 when Amazon was only three years old and, as he says himself, the internet was “still an infant technology”. At the time, less 1% of the world’s population had access to the internet. Nowadays, over 40% have an internet connection.
The short interview is of particular interest because it sheds light on how the e-commerce giant began and gives some idea of the thinking that led to its success. It also shows us that even at this early stage, Jeff Bezos and others like him were already very aware of the value gathering data through the internet could have for their marketing efforts.
Before you watch
Before watching the video, check some key vocabulary that you’ll hear.
Use one of the words below to complete each of the flashcard definitions.
publisher / ship / wholesaler / hedge fund / inventory
These definitions are adapted from collinsdictionary.com.
While you watch
Watch the video and answer the questions that appear on the screen.
After you watch
Now that we know a little more about the beginnings of Amazon, let’s focus on some of the language used in the video. Here are two activities you can use to first look at some useful business language and then at an interesting feature of English.
Useful business vocabulary
Complete the extracts from the video using one of these words.
Use a dictionary to check the meaning of words you’re not sure about. Here’s a good online dictionary you can use: Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries.
Jeff Bezos tells the interviewer that “At any given time, we’re inventorying in our own warehouse only a couple of thousand titles.”
Here, Jeff Bezos is using a commonly used rhetorical device that is sometimes known as ‘verbing’. He takes the noun ‘inventory’ and uses it as a verb – ‘we’re inventorying’ – as another way of saying ‘we keep in stock’.
Some of these noun-to-verb conversions have become acceptable standard English, for example:
He tabled the idea that we should sell the company. (propose)
I was asked to head the project. (lead or manage)
And in fact, this verbing mechanism has been part of the development of the language for a long time. And English is full of words that are both nouns and verbs. The vocabulary used to describe trends provides some commonly used examples:
- a drop / to drop
- a fall / to fall
- a decrease / to decrease
- an increase / to increase
- a rise / to rise
When nouns are used as verbs in this way for the first time they can sound strange and take a little getting used to. Here are some more recent examples:
If I train hard I hope to medal at the next Olympic Games. (win a medal)
The political situation will impact on our revenue. (have an impact on)
The conversion can also go the other way. For example, Jeff Bezos says “You’ll get a huge word of mouth fan out.”
Here he uses the phrasal verb ’to fan out’ as a noun meaning dissemination. Here’s a short video that explains this two-way process.