Did anyone else find this section weird:
In an archive of the thousands of thank you messages written
to Jeff over the years, a small sampling includes “I just
wanted to thank you for giving my husband the opportunity to
work for your company so many years ago and let you know
that he always spoke kindly and enthusiastically of the
distribution center, the people and you.” “Having finished
my shift I thought I would send you a short email to say
thank you. There is a fantastic team based here and we have
super support. Our mentors are true Amazon angels providing
guidance and showing great patience.” “I cried as I read the
Career Choice announcement on Amazon today. What Amazon is
doing to help its employees is affecting lives in the most
meaningful way I can think of. It restores my faith in
humanity.”
For who is wondering: "MacKenzie Bezos is an American novelist and the wife of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com."
And here's the author's response
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-05/responding-t...
Here is the author's response: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-05/responding-t...
The book author Brad Stone (who I used to work with) responded to Mackenzie's review and I think his comment is spot-on:
"I'm certainly less biased than Jeff's wife."
http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-wife-reviews-book-...
I think she streisanded the book, this "controversy" is the first I had heard of it myself. But now I've seen her review mentioned in three different online news sources in the last 24 hours.
"When reading phrases like these, which are used in the book routinely, readers should remember that Jeff was never interviewed for this book, [...]"
Since the subject of the book is still alive, I guess it's an unauthorized biography?
I would like to read Brad Stone's life partner's response to MacKenzie Bezos' review.
How long before the factual inaccuracies noted by Mrs Bezos bleed into Wikipedia's articles on Jeff Bezos and Amazon, with this book being cited as a notable reference?
For someone so close to Amazon, you'd think she would verify her name in her profile so that the review would show the Real Name tag next to her name (adding a little more credibility). Maybe it doesn't really matter since this is just her third review on Amazon, the other two written in year 2001.
I think it's notable that a review (that is currently the second most 'helpful') is the way to disagree with a book. It reaches people considering buying it, so it's less grandstanding than announcing the same facts to a newspaper, where there would be much less editorial control.
Debating biases aside... An author not interviewing their subject is unprofessional. (edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay )
I read a book about Amazon a while back, and it was not all that good:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2RXH1XQAP8AAA/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe...
This one appears to be better, but I think that until one of these guys manages to spend more time with Bezos, we won't really get the definitive story of the company's early years.
I would really like to see such a book, as Amazon, out of all the big tech companies, is probably the one I know the least about.
There still might be bias in what a wife knows of her husband.
Cool. I didn't know Bezos worked for DE Shaw. Their research into how we schedule molecular dynamics simulations to gain the maximum information from limited compute resources is going to revolutionize experimental design in the engineering world. http://www.deshawresearch.com/publications.html
Ironically, she had to buy the book to read it. The author didn't send them a copy?
I'm tired of anything Jeff Bezos. Actually, I liked Amazon better, when I didn't know so much about Jeff Bezos. Now I know his wife's name--ugh.
Something bothers me about the conclusion of the review...
"In this theory I treat the historical work as what it most manifestly is: a verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse. Histories (and philosophies of history as well) combine a certain amount of 'data,' theoretical concepts for 'explaining' these data, and a narrative structure for their presentation as an icon of sets of events presumed to have occurred in times past. In addition, I maintain, they contain a deep structural content which is generally poetic, and specifically linguistic, in nature, and which serves as the precritically accepted paradigm of what a distinctively 'historical' explanation should be." (Hayden White, Metahistory, p. IX)
What MacKenzie Bezos points out, albeit in a localised fashion, is what the Humanities have come to regard as the "linguistic turn" during the course of the 20th century. As Hayden White states above (in his concern with historical writing), historical writing takes a certain set of data that is then fitted into a wider narrative, alongside some underlying meta-narrative, which marks a certain interpretive paradigm (e.g. a progress-narrative). This, in turn, means that no account can desribe "historical truth". It also means that every account is fundamentally literary (or, as he formulates it, at least linguistic). It is no surprise, then, that the Bezos biography does not describe "historical fact". However, it also means that a biography written by Bezos's wive or even his autobiography cannot describe "historical truth" either. Every account remains a narrative, and thus fictional, even if based "on real events", as Hollywood so neatly calls it.
Hayden White continues: The chosen (or, in this case, criticised) writers' "status as possible models of historical representation or conceptualization does not depend upon the nature of the 'data' they used to support their generalizations or the theories they invoked to explain them; it depends rather upon the consistency, coherence, and illuminative power of their respective visions of the historical field." (Hayden White, Metahistory, p. 4)
So her final claim is dubious, at best: "Ideally, authors are careful to ensure people know whether what they are reading is history or an entertaining fictionalization. Hollywood often uses a more honest label: 'a story based on true events.' If authors won’t admit they’ve crossed this important line, their characters can do it for them."
While the "character" may certainly give you their version of the story, what they present is far from being "historical truth". They also choose examples, omit others, pick and make decisions, depending on their very own narrative. This is less a clash of "fiction" versus "historical truth", but instead a clash of two narratives. The character's narrative (in this case, Bezos's) might carry more authority (he is the character in question, after all), but the account remains nevertheless a narrative, which can also be criticised.
This is the same reflex as can be observed sometimes with old guest listeners at universities who torpedo (especially) historical lectures with a simple claim: "But I was there in 19xx, and I didn't know about or notice any of that." And while that might be a true data point, it doesn't mean that it somehow invalidates the wider narrative.
Edit: The author can thus certainly criticise the overall narrative or narrative thrust in the biography, but pointing out singular data points that simply oppose a given data point do not serve the same function.
Reading the review, I think I could create my own TL;DR:
Overall, there is confirmation bias. We see what we want to see.
This is as true for Ms. Bezos's review as it is for the author's biography. As is usually the case, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle area of consensus -- which we now know is anathemic territory for Mr. Bezos.
EDIT: would appreciate a reply to understand why this was downvoted.
The author's response is here: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-05/responding-t...
A long, well-written review that is ultimately worthless as the author is clearly biased due to being related to the subject of the book. A good illustration of the importance of context vs content.
"If this were an isolated example"
This always bugs me, damn grammar.
When I read journalism without knowing the subject well, I assume what I read is accurate. But I'm always shocked by the inaccuracy of reporting on stories I know/understand well.
I wonder whether this book is less accurate than average, or whether this review is finding only the typical level of inaccuracy.