5 CHAPTER ONE Bezos the founder of Amazon com believed his latest project would revolutionize the way people shop online WHO IS JEFF BEZOS Jeff Bezos is full of surprises When he was interviewed on the television news show 60 Minutes in December 2013 he proved it He told the news team he had a secret He claimed they would never guess what it was He told them if they could guess it they must be very lucky With that kind of luck he said he would give them half his money and send them to a casino Bezos the
founder of the shopping website Amazon com has an estimated net worth of more than 25 billion He was confident they couldn’t guess his secret Bezos was right The news team had no idea what the secret could be At the end of the interview Bezos took them into a room in Amazon Lab126 This research and development department in Cupertino California is where his company studies new ideas Inside the news team saw Bezos’s visionary plan for the future of package delivery There were several small flying robots known as drones Each had eight helicopter-like rotors spinning blades that propel it into the air The robots were black and yellow with long spidery legs On the Cutting Edge Inside Lab126 a screen appeared in front of the group A video revealed why Amazon was building these drones It showed how Amazon would deliver packages in 30 minutes or fewer This is far faster than the delivery trucks used today The drones would use 6
A m a z o n s d r o n e s a r e c a p a b l e o f c a r r y i n g f i v e p o u n d 2 3 kg packages up to ten miles 16 km the Global Positioning System GPS to find their way from warehouses to customers homes This is the same navigation system many cars use today Bezos was careful to note that the drones were not yet ready to begin deliveries Many tests needed to be done first It could be years before a drone delivered a real package Still Bezos felt confident this was the next big advancement in online shopping Bezos has been the biggest name in online shopping for more than a decade Amazon com was his first entry into this industry The website made 7
