We all know, or have heard about life in Silicon Valley.  The perks, the collegiality, the PowerPoint, the team ethos.  In fact, perhaps the most successful company to master the Internet is none of those things.  It engages in predatory pricing, it is fiercely competitive, it eschews both PowerPoint and perks.  Its leader was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 1999 and and yet, is just now 14 years later, reaching the zenith of his power.  The company is Amazon and its leader and founder Jeff Bezos.  Clearly the company is doing something different and doing it very, very well. Now we have the very best picture of Bezos and Amazon in Brad Stone's fascinating new book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.

My conversation with Brad Stone: