How Dori Monson just missed being billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
Dec 3, 2013, 1:33 PM | Updated: 2:07 pm
Dori Monson came real close to a billion dollar idea once when he owned a bookstore. (Image KIRO/AP)
(Image KIRO/AP)
After hearing of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ drone delivery method, KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson said it would definitely boost his Amazon purchases. He also shared a story of how he just missed beating Amazon to the punch.
In a “60 Minutes” interview this weekend, Bezos said delivery methods were much more humble in the early days.
“If you go back in time 18 years, I was driving the packages to the post office myself. We were very primitive,” said Bezos.
But what you might not know is another Seattle book purveyor was offering a very similar service even before this.
“When I owned a bookstore, one of my big business plans, one of my brainstorms was we’re going to super serve customers. So if somebody is coming in and looking for a book, we’ll find it for them,” said Dori. “I told all my employees and my partners in the bookstore, I said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do set us apart. When the book arrives to us, we’re going to bring it to their house,’ and we did that. I wanted us to be different.”
This was in the 1990s before giants like Barnes & Noble and Borders, and before Amazon, Dori explained.
“Amazon didn’t exist,” said Monson. “That was my thing though [book delivery]. I could have been Bezos.”
But Amazon’s delivery business obviously grew a bit faster than Monson’s, and he recognized a big thing coming.
“I started to get wind of Amazon and I said, ‘We’ve got to sell. We’ve got to get out of this business,'” said Dori, who is nothing but impressed with Amazon’s latest proposed delivery method.
“I’m watching this and I’m thinking, I would buy so much crap from Amazon just so I could sit on my porch and watch the drone flying in.”
While his dog would go berserk, Dori is eager to welcome the technology.
