BusinessWeek on Amazon Web Services (2006)

Yes, Amazon founder and Chief Executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, the onetime Internet poster boy who quickly became a post-dot-com piñata, is back with yet another new idea.  Many people continue to wonder if the world's largest online store will ever fulfill its original promise to revolutionize retailing.  But now Bezos is plotting another new direction for his 12-year-old company, which he will lay out on Nov. 8 at San Francisco's Web 2.0 Conference, the annual gathering of the digerati crème.  Judging from an advance look he gave BusinessWeek on one recent gray day at Amazon's Seattle headquarters, it's so far from Amazon's retail core that you may well wonder if he has finally slipped off the deep end.

~ Robert D. Hof, "Jeff Bezos' Risky Bet," BusinessWeek, November 13, 2006