Jeff Bezos

INTRODUCTION

Studies had been conducted to look at the different traits of an entrepreneur. Visionaries and risk taking are two characteristics identified by authors (Fisherman, 2000; Covey, 2006; et al) as traits of a successful entrepreneur although there are some (Schultz, 1980 and Brockhaus, 1980) who argued otherwise.

The purpose of this paper is to explore if there are relations between the 2 traits; vision and risk taking. We also look at the extent of risk taking an entrepreneur is willing to take to achieve the vision of his company’s future. We aim to find evidence of this in Jeffrey Preston Bezos (also known as “Jeff Bezos”) in his business pursuit.

Many articles on Bezos, Founder and CEO of the successful online store Amazon, described him as a visionary and risk taker. Prior to Amazon, he was a Senior Vice-President in DE Shaw, a Wall Street hedge fund firm before he quit his job to set up his own virtual bookshop in 1994. This store had over the past twenty years expanded its product line to include other products such as clothings, beauty products and even groceries. In the 7th year of operation in 2012 (Stone: Pg 6), Amazon achieved US$61 billion in sales. Besides Amazon, Bezos also acquired many online shops, ventured into Blue Origin which is an aerospace company developing technologies to offer space travel to customers and bought over a news agency called The Washington Post.

In the following sections, we look at how authors share their findings on risk taking and visions leading to an individual taking up entrepreneurship and if these entrepreneurs possess a propensity for risk taking in order to achieve their goals. We also take a closer look at Bezos’ business ventures, his business philosophy an...

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...tomer-oriented business was key to a success business venture. His business decisions were always focused on meeting his customers’ needs and wants. It was never about ripping off the customer in order to maximize his profits for Amazon.

To deliver the solutions for his customers, Bezos continuously made heavy investments on new innovations and process improvements in Amazon. He was willing to allow Amazon endure several years of losses much to the concern of his staff. The Super Saver Shipping Service, One-Click Shopping Technology and Amazon Prime membership were clear examples of initiatives of the risk Bezos undertook. In order to fulfill his vision of a customer centric business, he launched these services at very affordable prices for the customers but were expensive to maintain and often resulted in Bezos’ team wondering if they had made a dear mistake.