Sublime

By temperament, Skoll could not help but pour himself into the work in a scarily total fashion—once he started at eBay, he worked hundred-hour weeks for the next two and a half years. But he wasn’t driven by materialist hungers, and he thought of himself not as a businessperson but as a writer.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, envisioned a company that made money by delivering value to rather than extracting value from its customers. In order to do that, he wanted to be both the price leader and customer service leader for the long run.

Risher was swayed by the Amazon founder’s aggressive vision. “If we get this right, we might be a $1 billion company by 2000,” Bezos told him.

market realities. (Chapter 2)

compelling value proposition to its frequent visitors, who can order and pay ahead for their coffee, before they walk into a Starbucks store.

His influence stemmed not from his 16 percent ownership stake but from twenty-five years of prophetic invention, strategic foresight, and disciplined management.

Bill’s one passion in high school was computers, which led him to develop one skill, computer programming. While in high school he met one person, Paul Allen, who gave him his first job and became his partner in forming Microsoft. This happened as the result of one letter they sent to one person, Ed Roberts, who changed their lives forever by givin

Jeff often used an analogy in those days when describing our efforts to innovate and build new businesses. “We need to plant many seeds,” he would say, “because we don’t know which one of those seeds will grow into a mighty oak.”