11/25/2002 7:30 PM 34-101
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com; Robert Frederick, '96, Manager of Amazon Net Services

Description: In this lively presentation Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com discusses many of the technological advances that have enabled Amazon.com to be the "earth's most customer centric company". Bezos talks about Amazon's first 30 days of operation, shows the very first home page and explains how the existence of a little known book warehouse in Roseburg Oregon led to the decision to locate Amazon in Seattle. Since 1997, Amazon has spent $800 million on technology, more than it has spent on either warehousing or marketing. A self-proclaimed "EECS-geek", Bezos tells of technological advances that have not only enabled customers to find products, (and now at 28 million items), enabled products to find customers. Hear how Amazon developed "real time personalization", how the company performs "active experiments" and learn more about salad spinners than you could ever imagine. Also appearing is MIT alum Robert Frederick, Manager of Amazon Net Services. Frederick explains how these services enable other retail services to interact with Amazon. Hear how the company that "runs on computer science" plans for more technological advances in the future.""

Host(s): Dean for Student Life, ACM/IEEE

Tape #: T14257