Business Insider Edition
Twenty years ago, in 1999, Amazon was a five-year-old kindergartner startup navigating the early e-commerce market.
That didn't stop CEO Jeff Bezos from dreaming big, however. At the time, Amazon had just started to expand its offerings beyond books. But Bezos was already painting then-outlandish visions of his customer-first website becoming the one-stop marketplace for everything.
Flash forward to today and Bezos' is the richest man in the world, worth more than $141 billion .
Here are 8 predictions Jeff Bezos made in 1999 that are right on the money:
AP Photo/Andy Rogers
Bezos' vision in 1999 has become a reality. A 2018 poll conducted by NPR and Marist found that online shoppers are most likely to start on Amazon even before going on a search engine like Google.
Seph Lawless
Malls across the U.S. have been closing due to the "retail apocalypse" that's seen thousands of storefronts forced to shutter. A 2018 report from Credit Suisse estimated that 20 to 25% of malls would shut down over the next five years, indicating that there's still more truth to Bezos' quote from Wired .
AP Photo/Stevan Morgain
Bezos said "entertainment value"' is why places like movie theaters won't die. "That experience is what you get when you go to movie theaters, and why you don't always rent movies, right?" Bezos said to Wired.
Like he predicted, many malls and retailers have looked at these two paths to stay relevant. Some have transformed their stores to offer high-tech experiences to get customers into their brick-and-mortar locations.
Meanwhile, Bezos wanted a piece of that "immediate convenience" world for Amazon which spurred him to buy Whole Foods and experiment with other physical retail stores.
"You can take care of the last mile of delivery yourself at any time," Bezos told Wired in 1999.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
It seems like Bezos predicted the smart home back in 1999. Amazon now offers countless of its own smart home devices , all Alexa-enabled, such as Echo speakers, plugs, clocks, microwaves, and home security systems.
Charles Platiau/Reuters
While Barnes & Noble has largely remained a bookstore, Amazon counts books as just one product in its ever-growing marketplace. Perhaps in the early days of e-readers the two brands were seen as direct competitors, but the Amazon's Kindle has greatly outpaced Barnes & Nobles' Nook.
AP Photo/Richard Drew
Personalized ads, using data from people's search and shopping histories, are commonplace today. As live TV consumption continues to decline, more and more money is consistently being put into digital advertising .
As of late 2018, Amazon was on track to becoming the third largest digital advertiser in the US behind Google and Facebook.
AP Photo/Richard Drew
Bezos mentioned his gripe with the long wait time to start up his computer on several interviews in 1999. In an interview with Charlie Rose , Bezos guessed that computers would soon be equipped with what he referred to as "instant-on."
Between smartphones that give you answers in the palm of your hand and laptops that don't need to be turned off after each use, he nailed that one. Technology has never been so readily accessible.
Amazon; Samantha Lee/Business Insider
While "vast bulk" may be an overstatement, online shopping has skyrocketed. Amazon has become a favorite for buying everyday essentials and household products, especially with offerings like product subscriptions, voice-activated shopping via Alexa and Prime Pantry that streamline ordering such items.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Bezos discussed Amazon's use of customer data in an interview for CBS' "60 Minutes." In the segment, reporter Bob Simon says this startling line: "Bezos refuses to rule out selling the valuable information to other companies in the future. But he doesn't think his customers are concerned about the issue."
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