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There Was a Plot Twist When He Ordered It
Because it was such a niche book, they didn’t have it in stock at Amazon. Their warehouse had very limited space at the time.
Jeff Bezos found a workaround that exempted him from having to drive and buy it. Their supplier required them to order books in a minimum of 10. Yet with one of their suppliers, if the books were out of stock, they’d send you the 1 book and reimburse you for the other 9, which is what happened. It would have been amazing if Jeff Bezos hand-delivered this first order, but history isn’t catered to our liking.
Today, Wainwright is the Chief Technology Officer of Kollective. He still has that book along with his purchase slip
He is also still an Amazon customer and says nearly half the things he buys comes from the company. Interestingly, he’s able to go all the way back to 1995 on his Amazon account history to see the order. Additionally, making his journey even more interesting, an entire building is named after him at the South Lake Amazon campus:
Lastly, if you’ll allow me to add my own personal note, I couldn’t help but wonder what my own first Amazon purchase was. You can look it up in your order’s summary, selecting by year. I’d recommend you try it. It’s a fun little exercise.
My first order from 2012. It was incredibly domestic:
But yes, the takeaway here. A very smart programmer from outside the company bought a thick read on Artificial Intelligence in the summer of 1995.
Mr. Wainwright, we salute you for keeping that book intact. I’m sorry they made you pay for it. If it’s any consolation, I suspect you could garner a few more dollars than the $19.99 you paid.
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