How Jeff Bezos convinced Lyft CEO to quit Microsoft, join Amazon in the 90s
In 1996, David Risher told Bill Gates that he had left the administration role in Microsoft, and at the time, Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world with an annual revenue of about $ 8.7 billion to get a “Little, Little Bookstore online” job.
Risher, CEO of Lyft, confessed to the Fortune leadership in a part of the next Podcast.
In fact, Bill Gates tried to talk without moving Risher, and in Podcast, Risher reminded him that Microsoft was “successful” in the larger company in which he developed his first database product.
Gates – then the richest person in the world has a clear value estimated by Forbes 18 billion dollars In September 1996 – he was surprised that Risher would want to leave Microsoft for an internet initiative reporting annual income 15.7 million dollars In 1996, just two years after Jeff Bezos founded a company.
“‘Things are going well [here]. You want to tell me that you have left this company for a small, small internet bookstore that no one has heard.
Although Risher understood the risk of leaving a movement of a built -in technology giant for a much smaller and undisputed start, the founder of Amazon filed a convincing lawsuit.
Until 2000, ‘we will be a billion dollar business’
Risher actually met Bezos for the first time before joining Amazon, for a year, when the founder was looking for a work reference to another newly employed Bezos hired.
Risher told journalist Danielle Newnham, “We made a great speech and I was really impressed with the questions he asked, and Amazon CEO would take a background control personally for 45 minutes.” 2015 Interview.
In 1996, Risher was so impressed by Bezos and Amazon that he began to interview a job in the young attempt. There were two things about Bezos that convinced Risher that he made the right decision. The first was Bezos’s obsession with the customer experience.
“If you take responsibility seriously, it is very strong,” the idea that you can heal the lives of millions of customers is very strong, “he said.
The other part of the field of Bezos’ field was the confidence that the entrepreneur could be Amazon’s next largest technology company.
At that time, Amazon initially had a “relatively small business” that focused only on selling books. However, Bezos had a clear vision that would start with books until Amazon became today’s “everything store” and eventually expanded to more product categories.
According to Risher, Bezos said, “‘If we do everything right, until 2000, we will be a billion dollar job,’ ‘he said.
‘Very challenging’ opportunity
Risher clearly bought Bezos’s Amazon’s vision. The authority said the opportunity to be in the forefront of such a big, rapid growth “very attractive.”
“I thought to myself: ‘I thought about how often you will be in a company and a billion dollar company in this crazy intersection of technology and culture and all these different things?’ ‘He said.
Amazon, Bezos’ predicted a year in 1999, an annual income of $ 1.6 billion. Risher was a large part of this growth and joined Amazon as the 37th employee of the company. Risher’s role involved the expansion of Amazon to various new product categories, including music, movies and toys.
When Risher left the company to become a business professor at the University of Washington in 2002, Amazon’s annual income was $ 3.9 billion.
Now 60 years old, Leading Lyft since Risher 2023, and he is still inspired by leadership from his former bosses The billionaire Gates and Bezos. Risher often says. He also remembers the excitement of Amazon’s first years with love.
“It was a rocket ship with a really fun thing.” He said. “It was really exciting to build something that has not been built on this scale before.”
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