14 ms·

Stories and lessons from working with Jeff Bezos on the original Kindle

295 points by prostoalex 6y ago

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> We added a keyboard for search (this was a mistake, but it was worth a try). I have a keyboard kindle. The keyboard is not a mistake; it's great. I wish other kindles had kept it. (The keyboard does feature a glaring mistake -- it doesn't have any number keys, despite the fact that its primary use is to type numbers. But the solution is to have number keys, not to get rid of the keyboard.)
- toast0 6y ago
  I've got a kindle keyboard too. Very nice to have buttons to type with for search. What numbers are you entering, I can't recall doing that very often?
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Location numbers, for "go to location".
- megablast 6y ago
  Nah. It’s a waste of space and weight. Touch screen trumps it.
  - m45t3r 6y ago
    I would concur with you if the latency of e-paper was similar to a LCD screen, but it is not. Typing in the Kindle PW is a really bad experience.
- chillfox 6y ago
  Got one of them as well and I don’t think I ever used the keyboard.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Strongly agreed. People keep saying "search", "search". But for me, no1 use case was making notes. Am I the weird one to make notes of my thoughts in books/articles as I read?
  - grey-area 6y ago
    Most people don't take notes. It depends what you're reading for I guess - if you're reading for pleasure there's little reason to take notes IMO.
- switch11 6y ago
  some variants had number keys removed later very bad decision
Causality1 6y ago
The Kindle 3 is still my preferred eReader. Dropping page turn buttons was good marketing but horrible for usability.
mdoms 6y ago
I consider the Kindle one of the most underbaked products I have ever used, and it staggers me that no one seems to care. Earlier iterations were truly ground-breaking, so we gave them a break on the details. But we've been at this for 12 years now, the product really should have matured more. I'm not talking about the state of E-ink, but the usability of the Kindle device itself. I current use a latest-gen Paperwhite but I've owned almost all of them. The current one, in my opinion, is a huge step backwards in lots of ways from earlier iterations. The touch screen is appalling and has no place on an E-ink device. The software is incredibly bad. There's so much scope there to surface useful information on the home screen but there's nothing of value there - I can't even see more than a couple of books in progress, much less find something I may want to read later. It's just astoundingly bad.
- dman 6y ago
  In the big tech companies it is much harder to make the case for incremental improvements to existing products than it is to take on new disruptive problems.
  - setzer22 6y ago
    But the opposite could be argued as well? Taking on a new disruptive problem is a huge risk, and big corps are generally risk averse...
    - dman 6y ago
      Depends on the company - in a company like Amazon where Jeff is constantly pushing the envelope - standing still is the best recipe for falling behind. And you can see a hint of this happening in the article itself - the person running Books is given the reward of commoditizing Books as the reward of doing a great job of running Books. All the glory is in delivering new bigger and better things to Jeff, not in incrementally delivering 10% year over year improvements on an existing problem. In fact in such companies it can become difficult for managers to attract and retain ambitious talent to work on "incremental" things.
- 6y ago
biddlesby 6y ago
I find the tone of this Twitter post exhausting. He talks as if his work revolutionized the world and Jeff Bezos is a god among men. They made a fairly useful gadget that sold well. Seriously, come back down to earth.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  > They made a fairly useful gadget that sold well. Perhaps a little bit breathless, but it was an amazing thing at the time. I remember buying one (a DX) from Malyasia, (because they weren't available in Australia), through a reseller (some company who bought stacks of them and resold them around the world). It was a talking point for a long time - people would ask me about it on the train etc. I still have it and still marvel at its amazingness occasionally. Edit: remembered some more - laptops at the time had awful battery life, this thing could carry thousands of books and last weeks from one charge. I could download any book (mostly) instantly, before that I'd order books from the states, they'd take weeks to arrive and cost a fortune. It was an amazing thing.
  - esperent 6y ago
    Somebody would have created an ebook if not for Amazon. They were just well placed to do so, but they didn't invent any of the technology or concepts. Much like Apple and touchscreen phones, or Tesla and electric cars. The might have advanced the tech by a couple of years but they were profiting off the inevitable.
    - chadcmulligan 6y ago
      Could be, there were other ebook readers around at the time, but it was Amazon that integrated it with the business of buying books and made them cheap. So, yes, eventually some one would have done it, but by then the iPad may have been around, would a kindle have been viable, after the iPad? hard to say.
    - yomly 6y ago
      IIRC from the Everything Store there was some conjecture that the Amazon "read the first chapter" feature paved the way to mass digitalization of books. So they were well positioned to launch with decent selection and ramp up faster than if they relied on the pace of distributors. If any amazonians from around that time could confirm that would be cool... There is art in execution too.
quickthrower2 6y ago
For me the ability to get the free cellular anywhere in the world was the sizzle. I remember downloading a book in Tunisia in 2010!
quink 6y ago
I agree. The original Kindle was revolutionary. But it's been completely stagnant since then. The level of innovation to drive forward doesn't have to be that large. After a lot of time thinking about the problem, the sweet spot for me would be an e-reader that combines: * CBR/CBZ/EPUB support * MicroSD slot for expandable storage (or 32 GB+) * Yellow backlight * Robust enough software * No Android or web browser to speak of (I want a focused device without distractions) (but maybe Pocket Casts built in, with a 3.5mm port or Bluetooth) * 300 dpi * 7.8 inch display And a price point of US$150. Which seems to be impossible with a 7.8 inch e-ink display. If someone comes out with this device I will buy it instantly. The Kobo Clara HD comes seriously close and I love mine but it is on the verge of no longer being on sale. I think I will just have to wait for the Android e-ink tablets to come down in price and deal with an absolutely ancient version of Android, which they all seem to have.
- megablast 6y ago
  It has a web browser. It’s just so slow.
  - quink 6y ago
    I know, I love it. It's there, but it's so bad that it's not keeping me from the eBooks for any appreciable amount of time, the actual intent behind the device.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Kobo hardware was/is really good, I bought Kindles for my mum (the amazon store experience is easier for her) and Kobo's for myself and the Auro One was a fabulous piece of hardware.
- cwyers 6y ago
  You need a web browser. I take my Kindle on the road with me (or at least, I did) and you can't sign into hotel wifi without a web browser anymore.
loriverkutya 6y ago
The removal of the physical page turning button rendered one handed usage impossible if you want hold the kindle in your left hand. It is massively annoys me.
- c1c2c3 6y ago
  You only need to be able to reach about a 1/3 of the way over the screen to tap the part that changes to the next page. Takes a little time to get used to but I read left handed all the time.
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  How small are your hands? Thumb on one side, pinky/ring on the other.
- jon-wood 6y ago
  Instead of tapping the left of the screen swipe from right to left and it’ll go to the next page. The UX on that is awful as it’s never mentioned, but it is very possible to read left handed.
achow 6y ago
>3/ Cannibalize yourself. Steve Kessel was running Amazon’s media business in 2004 (books/music/DVD’s). Books alone generated more than 50% of Amazon’s cash flow. Jeff fired Steve from his job and reassigned him to build Kindle. Steve’s new mission: destroy his old business. - In 2015 Amazon's free cash flow was $529M [1], printed books contributed ~$250M to that - In 2019 total ebook revenue in the United States $983.3M (overall and not only Amazon's). [2] Was Kindle 'distraction' worth it? I love Kindle and eBooks but did Bezos really make the right call when Amazon was just about beginning to recover from the severe dotcom crash? [1]https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/free-cash-flow https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/free-c... [2]https://goodereader.com/blog/digital-publishing/ebook-revenue-fell-4-2-in-2019-and-generated-983-3-million https://goodereader.com/blog/digital-publishing/ebook-revenu...
- chillfox 6y ago
  It’s better to cannibalize your own business than wait for someone else to do it.
  - switch11 6y ago
    yes there is one other factor that people are missing there are over a million self published authors. They are all sending people to Amazon to buy books Those book pages have ads for other stuff The amount of money coming from that is not insignificant To give you some idea. I know at least 4 people who were making $50,000+ a month from affiliate sales Of course, most of them got screwed like all other affiliates However, 90% of the money was from stuff other than what they were sending people to Amazon for * 1 million authors, all desperate to get their books to readers, spending money on Facebook Ads and newspapers and radios sending readers to Amazon
NewEntryHN 6y ago
- Ebooks are the most important invention of the XXIth century. - Jeff Bezos is a God. - A bunch of weird corporate tactics worked for us at the time so they are lessons on how to make a successful product.
- dm319 6y ago
  Yes, there's definitely a bit of survivorship bias going on here. The lesson isn't to compete with yourself, or ignore all of your advisors, or trying to pivot your business model after a crash etc etc. There are plenty of businesses who have failed doing all these things. I suspect that Jeff Bezos had a vision, and these are more side effects rather than the reason for its success.
  - switch11 6y ago
    Some of the stuff they say are completely inaccurate He claims Kindle as the first ereader to use an eInk screen Sony ereader launched a YEAR before and had an eink screen Also this guy seems to be a worshipper rather than an unbiased or somewhat objective observer
- mattm 6y ago
  Yeah people might want to read "The Inside Story Of Jeff Bezos’s Fire Phone Debacle" for a counterpoint https://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire https://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire
TeMPOraL 6y ago
The prototype design of Kindle has an eeirly Star Trek feel to it: https://twitter.com/abcerra/status/1288076705634988035 https://twitter.com/abcerra/status/1288076705634988035 In particular, the shape and labels of those buttons on the sides make it look like LCARS interface with physical parts.
- morelisp 6y ago
  That's the first consumer model, not a prototype. The keyboard might have been a mistake but the jogwheel was the best possible input device for the two core tasks of menu navigation and text highlighting. I miss it a lot.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  I worked in the Kindle division and got to see a lot of the prototypes being soldered and tested. The most interesting one to me was the version that had a metallic case with over 1,000 holes drilled into it as a esthetic design feature. This made it unmanufacturable - Foxconn had to buy thousands of additional CNC machines just to drill those little holes. If you're interested in reading about how physical items can be made unmfg., read about all the startups that request "Apple white plastic", which requires cleaning every machine in the factory to get bright white for just your run.
giomasce 6y ago
I feel a lot of survivor bias here.
- pizza234 6y ago
  Spot-on. While there is definitely a component of genius in Bezos' personality, for this exact reason, most of the - let's call them - guidelines, won't work for other people/projects. Point in case: > 7/ Set unrealistic expectations This is a recipe for a disaster for the vast majority of the projects. One field that pops into my mind is videogames development - this attitude is one of the greatest and well-known problems.
cblconfederate 6y ago
I liked the keyboard kindle, it was the best. Touch really sucks and it's makes one constantly anxious of not touching the wrong spot on the screen. Having dedicated buttons for actions makes it more predictable
grey-area 6y ago
The touch screen could be improved, but probably hasn't been because it would raise the cost and it is good enough. Most other things about the kindle are pretty good, including wireless syncing the early use of an e-ink screen, both of which were contrarian and ahead of their time. The software is just good enough, like most Amazon software, but it does stay out of the way if you stick to the happy path. I don't really want it to change, I turn of most of the 'features' they've added over the years, like highlighting or notes. I want it to do one thing well - present black text on a white page, and it has done that well for years. For me the value of a kindle is that it is a cheap single-function device which performs that function very well. If I want to read, I read on the kindle by choice, because the screen is a vastly better experience for reading than an LCD. If it breaks, I buy another, because it's much better than any other device (including paper) for reading.
iamAtom 6y ago
Based on radiocarbon dating researchers say GoodReads is built by Ancient Aliens.
- switch11 6y ago
  anyone who has used Good Reads loves your comment
tryauuum 6y ago
I loved how older paperwhite wasn't flat. I mean the border was risen-up. Modern paperwhite and oasis have their screen hidden behind layer of think transparent plastic. You don't feel like your are staring at actual paper anymore
soapdog 6y ago
I've spent 16 years working for major niche publisher and am a bit addicted to eReaders. Every time threads like this appear here I see lots of people that have no idea that there is a whole world of devices outside Kindle and Amazon. Here are some of the more interesting devices current out there in the market: Pocketbook Color: yes, a color e-ink device for about $200: https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/catalog/color/color-ch https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/catalog/color/color-ch You can see the Pocketbook color reading comics here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkufktAQC_E&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkufktAQC_E&t=0s which beautifully demonstrates its colour capabilities. Onyx Boox Note 2: 10'' e-ink screen, Android 9.0, touch and wacom digitizer: https://onyxboox.com/boox_note2 https://onyxboox.com/boox_note2 It can be used for school/uni/research. Its large screen and notetaking features pair well with annotating fixed-layout formats such as PDFs. I have some strong opinions about Amazon and its eBook business. I really like their tech but their business practices are not aligned with what I want for myself as an author. I have moved to Kobo for my personal eReader and am using a Kobo Forma which is their answer to the Kindle Oasis. Even though the Oasis hardware with its metal usage feels much more premium than the Forma with its flexy plastic shell, the device is much more open than the Oasis and it is easier for me to use it both as a reader and as an author. I live in the UK and Kobo through its partner Overdrive -- which it owned up until not long ago but I am not sure they still do -- allows me to borrow books from local libraries. I have a couple library cards from different library consortiums and that gives me a lot of catalogs to search and borrow from. Synchronizing with Pocket is also a godsend, every time I see a nice article here on HN that I think deserves more attention and care, I just send it to Pocket and read it from the Kobo in a nice park. Anyway, this is just some pointers to those here that never experienced ebooks and ereaders outside Amazon. Yes, Amazon brings a lot of value to the table, especially for the readers, books tend to be cheaper in Amazon but that is due to its monopolistic practices and thug tactics. Kindle is not where the innovation is happening, other devices have better hardware and better software, other companies have healthier ecosystems.
- switch11 6y ago
  agreed 100% with you soapdog anyone who works or partners with Amazon sooner or later wants ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with them look back to the hearing (Anti Trust) - Jeff Bezos was telling his people to go after their partners like a panther goes after a wounder gazelle * At least Microsoft waited until you became a big company to screw you over Amazon starts looking to screw you over the minute you start making a couple million a year
jariel 6y ago
"Don't believe the institutional no" "Just because someone else has failed does not mean it's not possible" So here's the part where we ignore basically all legitimate advice and the experience of others? Then are we using judgement, or hubris? If there is some artefact of new technology that changes the nature of the opportunity, then that's not so much 'ignoring' advice, it's contextualising it i.e. 'well it failed before, but ink screens are now cheap'. Etc.
alfiedotwtf 6y ago
Survivorship Bias... please take this tweetstorm with a grain of salt unless you have backing the size of Amazon’s income to play with
- nojito 6y ago
  Amazon was not that big back in 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/business/technology-amazon-reports-first-full-year-profit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/business/technology-amazo...
gigatexal 6y ago
the bit about 100k books at launch at 9.99 could have been dumping no? He makes no mention of the publishers coming to an agreement on such a low price. Usually e-books like that are 19.99 iirc.
- morelisp 6y ago
  At the time, "e-books like that" did not exist. The publishers were not happy, sued in combination wither other tech companies, and introduced agency pricing as a response. A story with no heroes or winners.
tomerbd 6y ago
Which is the best for programming/math reading and for sketching notes while reading them?
- person_of_color 6y ago
  Remarkable
ggm 6y ago
The basic stuffups in the GUI are astronomical. Try author search. Sorry.. we just do what we do. Yes you typed john le Carre but it suits us better to show you authors LIKE John le Carre. Whyyyyy
cosmodisk 6y ago
I've read quite a few posts on the thread and all I got is "Jeff did this,Jeff did that.Jeff is amazing,Jeff is cool. Jeff is brilliant.Jeff,Jeff,Jeff..". Of course he was pushy and demanding to get the results,but come on,give some credit to others too.
braggaditchio 6y ago
what the fuck have you done, seriously? you come back down to earth. it takes a lot of hubris to put yourself above others who have achieve something by pretending they're below you or their achievements don't matter, remember that, arrogant man.
braggaditchio 6y ago
what's the story with bezos' helicopter crash?
- xtracto 6y ago
  www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-helicopter-crash-2018-3
  - bouncycastle 6y ago
    The photo of the wreck http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/amazons-jeff-bezos-helicopter-crash http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/amazons-jeff-bezos-helicop...
asah 6y ago
Wait, kindle is a piece of hardware and not just an app?! /s
- xtracto 6y ago
  I had a prs-900 (sony daily reader). I remember at the time comparing it with the Amazon alternative and the Sony one being way better in both how open it was, features and speed.
dutch3000 6y ago
if only our system incentivized the geniuses to become obsessed with making the world a better place...
xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
Fun fact: the original Amazon Echo has a significant amount of Kindle software in it, developed by the same branch. The later releases switched to Android for no particularly good reason...
- nevir 6y ago
  I'm so sorry :(
rawoke083600 6y ago
Just give me an affordable 8 inch !
- rawoke083600 6y ago
  So tired, of 6inch everywhere
jeffreyrogers 6y ago
> He insisted on syncing over cellular, and he didn’t want to charge the customer for data. We told him it couldn’t be done, he did it anyway. This is really interesting. I wish he went into more detail about this.
- nevir 6y ago
  Some fun tidbits: Every Kindle had a unique phone number. By the time your Kindle shipped to you, it knew who its owner was, and had already logged you in and downloaded all your books. Any time we wanted to push updates to them, we'd SMS it (IIRC) and the Kindle would connect back to figure out what needs doing. Original Kindles had an (awful) web browser (and didn't charge for data). It was not bad at Google maps
  - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
    I recall shaving one or two bytes off one of the cell messages shaved something like $7MM off the monthly AT&T bill...
saos 6y ago
A man with a vision. Kudos to him
arielm 6y ago
I think you guys are missing the point of this Twitter thread. Yes, the kindle itself is mediocre at best. Technically it’s got lot of issues, and I personally still prefer a physical book over it any day. But... The thread was about being inspired. You can be inspired even while working on something that ultimately isn’t great. You can be inspired working with someone who has the reputation of not being the best boss. You can be inspired when you want to. So while working on this mediocre device, which is pretty much the only way to consume books digitally, this guy loved every minute. To me, that’s the lesson here.
- amelius 6y ago
  Yes, inspiration, that's how these so called technology leaders trick us engineers in doing work for them, even, at times, to the detriment of society.
  - mam2 6y ago
    You poor thing
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      > You poor thing If you have something constructive to say, even if that something is a reason criticism, then say it; this comes across as condescending and dismissive.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- mathattack 6y ago
  I viewed it as a story in how a great CEO realized that he needed to personally step in to drive and protect a program that could cannibalize their existing business. Similar story to Netflix’s video streaming over the CDs.
  - xxpor 6y ago
KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
It's not clear from the thread what was Rose's role in developing the Kindle. Is this common knowledge? I tried to look him up and it looks like he's running a VC fund and is a former VP of mergers and acquisitions at Facebook.
LeicaLatte 6y ago
Bad storytelling.
ignoramous 6y ago
> Jeff fired Steve from his job and reassigned him to build Kindle. Steve’s new mission: destroy his old business. Fun fact for trivia night: Steve, after he returned from his sabbatical, would go on to head the Amazon Go division. Some amazingly diverse set of leadership roles over the years for him. His Kindle portfolio was handed over to Dave Limp, an ex-Apple executive.
winter_blue 6y ago
One key takeaway I have from this story is that the core skill of making a business and making it work – is critical and different from the “business idea” itself. It means that if you are a good “businessman”, you can start a new business in a new field, and possibly succeed. That’s why we see so much “pivoting” and forays into new ideas. Here Bezos and Amazon jumped into two completely new things they hadn’t done before: the Kindle, and AWS. And they succeeded! You don’t have to stick with what’s familiar, easy, or what’s your “area of expertise”. You can jump into new stuff, new project, completely new & innovative endeavors, and very well possibly succeed!! So HAVE HOPE!!! That’s my takeaway from this!
wwarner 6y ago
The story is about a creative response to Apple's decimation of the music industry's business model. It signalled the time had come to bring digital distribution to books, and Bezos was one of the few in the business to realize that. I'll agree that the hardware never satisfied, but while I'm sure it's been a disappointment to many, it certainly has not stopped the trend nor has it hurt the kindle project much.

295 points by prostoalex 6y ago

> We added a keyboard for search (this was a mistake, but it was worth a try). I have a keyboard kindle. The keyboard is not a mistake; it's great. I wish other kindles had kept it. (The keyboard does feature a glaring mistake -- it doesn't have any number keys, despite the fact that its primary use is to type numbers. But the solution is to have number keys, not to get rid of the keyboard.)

toast0 6y ago
I've got a kindle keyboard too. Very nice to have buttons to type with for search. What numbers are you entering, I can't recall doing that very often?
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Location numbers, for "go to location".
megablast 6y ago
Nah. It’s a waste of space and weight. Touch screen trumps it.
- m45t3r 6y ago
  I would concur with you if the latency of e-paper was similar to a LCD screen, but it is not. Typing in the Kindle PW is a really bad experience.
chillfox 6y ago
Got one of them as well and I don’t think I ever used the keyboard.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Strongly agreed. People keep saying "search", "search". But for me, no1 use case was making notes. Am I the weird one to make notes of my thoughts in books/articles as I read?
- grey-area 6y ago
  Most people don't take notes. It depends what you're reading for I guess - if you're reading for pleasure there's little reason to take notes IMO.
switch11 6y ago
some variants had number keys removed later very bad decision

Causality1 6y ago

The Kindle 3 is still my preferred eReader. Dropping page turn buttons was good marketing but horrible for usability.

mdoms 6y ago

I consider the Kindle one of the most underbaked products I have ever used, and it staggers me that no one seems to care. Earlier iterations were truly ground-breaking, so we gave them a break on the details. But we've been at this for 12 years now, the product really should have matured more. I'm not talking about the state of E-ink, but the usability of the Kindle device itself. I current use a latest-gen Paperwhite but I've owned almost all of them. The current one, in my opinion, is a huge step backwards in lots of ways from earlier iterations. The touch screen is appalling and has no place on an E-ink device. The software is incredibly bad. There's so much scope there to surface useful information on the home screen but there's nothing of value there - I can't even see more than a couple of books in progress, much less find something I may want to read later. It's just astoundingly bad.

dman 6y ago
In the big tech companies it is much harder to make the case for incremental improvements to existing products than it is to take on new disruptive problems.
- setzer22 6y ago
  But the opposite could be argued as well? Taking on a new disruptive problem is a huge risk, and big corps are generally risk averse...
  - dman 6y ago
    Depends on the company - in a company like Amazon where Jeff is constantly pushing the envelope - standing still is the best recipe for falling behind. And you can see a hint of this happening in the article itself - the person running Books is given the reward of commoditizing Books as the reward of doing a great job of running Books. All the glory is in delivering new bigger and better things to Jeff, not in incrementally delivering 10% year over year improvements on an existing problem. In fact in such companies it can become difficult for managers to attract and retain ambitious talent to work on "incremental" things.
6y ago

biddlesby 6y ago

I find the tone of this Twitter post exhausting. He talks as if his work revolutionized the world and Jeff Bezos is a god among men. They made a fairly useful gadget that sold well. Seriously, come back down to earth.

chadcmulligan 6y ago
> They made a fairly useful gadget that sold well. Perhaps a little bit breathless, but it was an amazing thing at the time. I remember buying one (a DX) from Malyasia, (because they weren't available in Australia), through a reseller (some company who bought stacks of them and resold them around the world). It was a talking point for a long time - people would ask me about it on the train etc. I still have it and still marvel at its amazingness occasionally. Edit: remembered some more - laptops at the time had awful battery life, this thing could carry thousands of books and last weeks from one charge. I could download any book (mostly) instantly, before that I'd order books from the states, they'd take weeks to arrive and cost a fortune. It was an amazing thing.
- esperent 6y ago
  Somebody would have created an ebook if not for Amazon. They were just well placed to do so, but they didn't invent any of the technology or concepts. Much like Apple and touchscreen phones, or Tesla and electric cars. The might have advanced the tech by a couple of years but they were profiting off the inevitable.
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago
    Could be, there were other ebook readers around at the time, but it was Amazon that integrated it with the business of buying books and made them cheap. So, yes, eventually some one would have done it, but by then the iPad may have been around, would a kindle have been viable, after the iPad? hard to say.
  - yomly 6y ago
    IIRC from the Everything Store there was some conjecture that the Amazon "read the first chapter" feature paved the way to mass digitalization of books. So they were well positioned to launch with decent selection and ramp up faster than if they relied on the pace of distributors. If any amazonians from around that time could confirm that would be cool... There is art in execution too.

quickthrower2 6y ago

For me the ability to get the free cellular anywhere in the world was the sizzle. I remember downloading a book in Tunisia in 2010!

quink 6y ago

I agree. The original Kindle was revolutionary. But it's been completely stagnant since then. The level of innovation to drive forward doesn't have to be that large. After a lot of time thinking about the problem, the sweet spot for me would be an e-reader that combines: * CBR/CBZ/EPUB support * MicroSD slot for expandable storage (or 32 GB+) * Yellow backlight * Robust enough software * No Android or web browser to speak of (I want a focused device without distractions) (but maybe Pocket Casts built in, with a 3.5mm port or Bluetooth) * 300 dpi * 7.8 inch display And a price point of US$150. Which seems to be impossible with a 7.8 inch e-ink display. If someone comes out with this device I will buy it instantly. The Kobo Clara HD comes seriously close and I love mine but it is on the verge of no longer being on sale. I think I will just have to wait for the Android e-ink tablets to come down in price and deal with an absolutely ancient version of Android, which they all seem to have.

megablast 6y ago
It has a web browser. It’s just so slow.
- quink 6y ago
  I know, I love it. It's there, but it's so bad that it's not keeping me from the eBooks for any appreciable amount of time, the actual intent behind the device.
noir_lord 6y ago
Kobo hardware was/is really good, I bought Kindles for my mum (the amazon store experience is easier for her) and Kobo's for myself and the Auro One was a fabulous piece of hardware.
cwyers 6y ago
You need a web browser. I take my Kindle on the road with me (or at least, I did) and you can't sign into hotel wifi without a web browser anymore.

loriverkutya 6y ago

The removal of the physical page turning button rendered one handed usage impossible if you want hold the kindle in your left hand. It is massively annoys me.

c1c2c3 6y ago
You only need to be able to reach about a 1/3 of the way over the screen to tap the part that changes to the next page. Takes a little time to get used to but I read left handed all the time.
Godel_unicode 6y ago
How small are your hands? Thumb on one side, pinky/ring on the other.
jon-wood 6y ago
Instead of tapping the left of the screen swipe from right to left and it’ll go to the next page. The UX on that is awful as it’s never mentioned, but it is very possible to read left handed.

achow 6y ago

>3/ Cannibalize yourself. Steve Kessel was running Amazon’s media business in 2004 (books/music/DVD’s). Books alone generated more than 50% of Amazon’s cash flow. Jeff fired Steve from his job and reassigned him to build Kindle. Steve’s new mission: destroy his old business. - In 2015 Amazon's free cash flow was $529M [1], printed books contributed ~$250M to that - In 2019 total ebook revenue in the United States $983.3M (overall and not only Amazon's). [2] Was Kindle 'distraction' worth it? I love Kindle and eBooks but did Bezos really make the right call when Amazon was just about beginning to recover from the severe dotcom crash? [1]https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/free-cash-flow https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/free-c... [2]https://goodereader.com/blog/digital-publishing/ebook-revenue-fell-4-2-in-2019-and-generated-983-3-million https://goodereader.com/blog/digital-publishing/ebook-revenu...

chillfox 6y ago
It’s better to cannibalize your own business than wait for someone else to do it.
- switch11 6y ago
  yes there is one other factor that people are missing there are over a million self published authors. They are all sending people to Amazon to buy books Those book pages have ads for other stuff The amount of money coming from that is not insignificant To give you some idea. I know at least 4 people who were making $50,000+ a month from affiliate sales Of course, most of them got screwed like all other affiliates However, 90% of the money was from stuff other than what they were sending people to Amazon for * 1 million authors, all desperate to get their books to readers, spending money on Facebook Ads and newspapers and radios sending readers to Amazon

NewEntryHN 6y ago

- Ebooks are the most important invention of the XXIth century. - Jeff Bezos is a God. - A bunch of weird corporate tactics worked for us at the time so they are lessons on how to make a successful product.

dm319 6y ago
Yes, there's definitely a bit of survivorship bias going on here. The lesson isn't to compete with yourself, or ignore all of your advisors, or trying to pivot your business model after a crash etc etc. There are plenty of businesses who have failed doing all these things. I suspect that Jeff Bezos had a vision, and these are more side effects rather than the reason for its success.
- switch11 6y ago
  Some of the stuff they say are completely inaccurate He claims Kindle as the first ereader to use an eInk screen Sony ereader launched a YEAR before and had an eink screen Also this guy seems to be a worshipper rather than an unbiased or somewhat objective observer
mattm 6y ago
Yeah people might want to read "The Inside Story Of Jeff Bezos’s Fire Phone Debacle" for a counterpoint https://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire https://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire

TeMPOraL 6y ago

The prototype design of Kindle has an eeirly Star Trek feel to it: https://twitter.com/abcerra/status/1288076705634988035 https://twitter.com/abcerra/status/1288076705634988035 In particular, the shape and labels of those buttons on the sides make it look like LCARS interface with physical parts.

morelisp 6y ago
That's the first consumer model, not a prototype. The keyboard might have been a mistake but the jogwheel was the best possible input device for the two core tasks of menu navigation and text highlighting. I miss it a lot.
redis_mlc 6y ago
I worked in the Kindle division and got to see a lot of the prototypes being soldered and tested. The most interesting one to me was the version that had a metallic case with over 1,000 holes drilled into it as a esthetic design feature. This made it unmanufacturable - Foxconn had to buy thousands of additional CNC machines just to drill those little holes. If you're interested in reading about how physical items can be made unmfg., read about all the startups that request "Apple white plastic", which requires cleaning every machine in the factory to get bright white for just your run.

giomasce 6y ago

I feel a lot of survivor bias here.

pizza234 6y ago
Spot-on. While there is definitely a component of genius in Bezos' personality, for this exact reason, most of the - let's call them - guidelines, won't work for other people/projects. Point in case: > 7/ Set unrealistic expectations This is a recipe for a disaster for the vast majority of the projects. One field that pops into my mind is videogames development - this attitude is one of the greatest and well-known problems.

cblconfederate 6y ago

I liked the keyboard kindle, it was the best. Touch really sucks and it's makes one constantly anxious of not touching the wrong spot on the screen. Having dedicated buttons for actions makes it more predictable

grey-area 6y ago

The touch screen could be improved, but probably hasn't been because it would raise the cost and it is good enough. Most other things about the kindle are pretty good, including wireless syncing the early use of an e-ink screen, both of which were contrarian and ahead of their time. The software is just good enough, like most Amazon software, but it does stay out of the way if you stick to the happy path. I don't really want it to change, I turn of most of the 'features' they've added over the years, like highlighting or notes. I want it to do one thing well - present black text on a white page, and it has done that well for years. For me the value of a kindle is that it is a cheap single-function device which performs that function very well. If I want to read, I read on the kindle by choice, because the screen is a vastly better experience for reading than an LCD. If it breaks, I buy another, because it's much better than any other device (including paper) for reading.

iamAtom 6y ago

Based on radiocarbon dating researchers say GoodReads is built by Ancient Aliens.

switch11 6y ago
anyone who has used Good Reads loves your comment

tryauuum 6y ago

I loved how older paperwhite wasn't flat. I mean the border was risen-up. Modern paperwhite and oasis have their screen hidden behind layer of think transparent plastic. You don't feel like your are staring at actual paper anymore

soapdog 6y ago

I've spent 16 years working for major niche publisher and am a bit addicted to eReaders. Every time threads like this appear here I see lots of people that have no idea that there is a whole world of devices outside Kindle and Amazon. Here are some of the more interesting devices current out there in the market: Pocketbook Color: yes, a color e-ink device for about $200: https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/catalog/color/color-ch https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/catalog/color/color-ch You can see the Pocketbook color reading comics here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkufktAQC_E&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkufktAQC_E&t=0s which beautifully demonstrates its colour capabilities. Onyx Boox Note 2: 10'' e-ink screen, Android 9.0, touch and wacom digitizer: https://onyxboox.com/boox_note2 https://onyxboox.com/boox_note2 It can be used for school/uni/research. Its large screen and notetaking features pair well with annotating fixed-layout formats such as PDFs. I have some strong opinions about Amazon and its eBook business. I really like their tech but their business practices are not aligned with what I want for myself as an author. I have moved to Kobo for my personal eReader and am using a Kobo Forma which is their answer to the Kindle Oasis. Even though the Oasis hardware with its metal usage feels much more premium than the Forma with its flexy plastic shell, the device is much more open than the Oasis and it is easier for me to use it both as a reader and as an author. I live in the UK and Kobo through its partner Overdrive -- which it owned up until not long ago but I am not sure they still do -- allows me to borrow books from local libraries. I have a couple library cards from different library consortiums and that gives me a lot of catalogs to search and borrow from. Synchronizing with Pocket is also a godsend, every time I see a nice article here on HN that I think deserves more attention and care, I just send it to Pocket and read it from the Kobo in a nice park. Anyway, this is just some pointers to those here that never experienced ebooks and ereaders outside Amazon. Yes, Amazon brings a lot of value to the table, especially for the readers, books tend to be cheaper in Amazon but that is due to its monopolistic practices and thug tactics. Kindle is not where the innovation is happening, other devices have better hardware and better software, other companies have healthier ecosystems.

switch11 6y ago
agreed 100% with you soapdog anyone who works or partners with Amazon sooner or later wants ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with them look back to the hearing (Anti Trust) - Jeff Bezos was telling his people to go after their partners like a panther goes after a wounder gazelle * At least Microsoft waited until you became a big company to screw you over Amazon starts looking to screw you over the minute you start making a couple million a year

jariel 6y ago

"Don't believe the institutional no" "Just because someone else has failed does not mean it's not possible" So here's the part where we ignore basically all legitimate advice and the experience of others? Then are we using judgement, or hubris? If there is some artefact of new technology that changes the nature of the opportunity, then that's not so much 'ignoring' advice, it's contextualising it i.e. 'well it failed before, but ink screens are now cheap'. Etc.

alfiedotwtf 6y ago

Survivorship Bias... please take this tweetstorm with a grain of salt unless you have backing the size of Amazon’s income to play with

nojito 6y ago
Amazon was not that big back in 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/business/technology-amazon-reports-first-full-year-profit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/business/technology-amazo...

gigatexal 6y ago

the bit about 100k books at launch at 9.99 could have been dumping no? He makes no mention of the publishers coming to an agreement on such a low price. Usually e-books like that are 19.99 iirc.

morelisp 6y ago
At the time, "e-books like that" did not exist. The publishers were not happy, sued in combination wither other tech companies, and introduced agency pricing as a response. A story with no heroes or winners.

tomerbd 6y ago

Which is the best for programming/math reading and for sketching notes while reading them?

person_of_color 6y ago
Remarkable

ggm 6y ago

The basic stuffups in the GUI are astronomical. Try author search. Sorry.. we just do what we do. Yes you typed john le Carre but it suits us better to show you authors LIKE John le Carre. Whyyyyy

cosmodisk 6y ago

I've read quite a few posts on the thread and all I got is "Jeff did this,Jeff did that.Jeff is amazing,Jeff is cool. Jeff is brilliant.Jeff,Jeff,Jeff..". Of course he was pushy and demanding to get the results,but come on,give some credit to others too.

braggaditchio 6y ago

what the fuck have you done, seriously? you come back down to earth. it takes a lot of hubris to put yourself above others who have achieve something by pretending they're below you or their achievements don't matter, remember that, arrogant man.

braggaditchio 6y ago

what's the story with bezos' helicopter crash?

xtracto 6y ago
www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-helicopter-crash-2018-3
- bouncycastle 6y ago
  The photo of the wreck http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/amazons-jeff-bezos-helicopter-crash http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/amazons-jeff-bezos-helicop...

asah 6y ago

Wait, kindle is a piece of hardware and not just an app?! /s

xtracto 6y ago
I had a prs-900 (sony daily reader). I remember at the time comparing it with the Amazon alternative and the Sony one being way better in both how open it was, features and speed.

dutch3000 6y ago

if only our system incentivized the geniuses to become obsessed with making the world a better place...

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago

Fun fact: the original Amazon Echo has a significant amount of Kindle software in it, developed by the same branch. The later releases switched to Android for no particularly good reason...

nevir 6y ago
I'm so sorry :(

rawoke083600 6y ago

Just give me an affordable 8 inch !

rawoke083600 6y ago
So tired, of 6inch everywhere

jeffreyrogers 6y ago

> He insisted on syncing over cellular, and he didn’t want to charge the customer for data. We told him it couldn’t be done, he did it anyway. This is really interesting. I wish he went into more detail about this.

nevir 6y ago
Some fun tidbits: Every Kindle had a unique phone number. By the time your Kindle shipped to you, it knew who its owner was, and had already logged you in and downloaded all your books. Any time we wanted to push updates to them, we'd SMS it (IIRC) and the Kindle would connect back to figure out what needs doing. Original Kindles had an (awful) web browser (and didn't charge for data). It was not bad at Google maps
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  I recall shaving one or two bytes off one of the cell messages shaved something like $7MM off the monthly AT&T bill...

saos 6y ago

A man with a vision. Kudos to him

arielm 6y ago

I think you guys are missing the point of this Twitter thread. Yes, the kindle itself is mediocre at best. Technically it’s got lot of issues, and I personally still prefer a physical book over it any day. But... The thread was about being inspired. You can be inspired even while working on something that ultimately isn’t great. You can be inspired working with someone who has the reputation of not being the best boss. You can be inspired when you want to. So while working on this mediocre device, which is pretty much the only way to consume books digitally, this guy loved every minute. To me, that’s the lesson here.

amelius 6y ago
Yes, inspiration, that's how these so called technology leaders trick us engineers in doing work for them, even, at times, to the detriment of society.
- mam2 6y ago
  You poor thing
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    > You poor thing If you have something constructive to say, even if that something is a reason criticism, then say it; this comes across as condescending and dismissive.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mathattack 6y ago
I viewed it as a story in how a great CEO realized that he needed to personally step in to drive and protect a program that could cannibalize their existing business. Similar story to Netflix’s video streaming over the CDs.
- xxpor 6y ago

KKKKkkkk1 6y ago

It's not clear from the thread what was Rose's role in developing the Kindle. Is this common knowledge? I tried to look him up and it looks like he's running a VC fund and is a former VP of mergers and acquisitions at Facebook.

LeicaLatte 6y ago

Bad storytelling.

ignoramous 6y ago

> Jeff fired Steve from his job and reassigned him to build Kindle. Steve’s new mission: destroy his old business. Fun fact for trivia night: Steve, after he returned from his sabbatical, would go on to head the Amazon Go division. Some amazingly diverse set of leadership roles over the years for him. His Kindle portfolio was handed over to Dave Limp, an ex-Apple executive.

winter_blue 6y ago

One key takeaway I have from this story is that the core skill of making a business and making it work – is critical and different from the “business idea” itself. It means that if you are a good “businessman”, you can start a new business in a new field, and possibly succeed. That’s why we see so much “pivoting” and forays into new ideas. Here Bezos and Amazon jumped into two completely new things they hadn’t done before: the Kindle, and AWS. And they succeeded! You don’t have to stick with what’s familiar, easy, or what’s your “area of expertise”. You can jump into new stuff, new project, completely new & innovative endeavors, and very well possibly succeed!! So HAVE HOPE!!! That’s my takeaway from this!

wwarner 6y ago

The story is about a creative response to Apple's decimation of the music industry's business model. It signalled the time had come to bring digital distribution to books, and Bezos was one of the few in the business to realize that. I'll agree that the hardware never satisfied, but while I'm sure it's been a disappointment to many, it certainly has not stopped the trend nor has it hurt the kindle project much.