On a nippy Wednesday morning, traffic snarls near Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in the capital triggered angry expletives from drivers, who were stranded staring at a huge orange balloon soaring against the skyline with Amazon emblazoned all over it.
Small traders, who had threatened to greet Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with vociferous protests for allegedly taking away their business, were nowhere to be seen. Only hundreds of small entrepreneurs, who had coughed up Rs 4,000 to attend a two-day event by the US retailer, stood in serpentine queues leading up to gate number 20.
Some took to social media to vent their ire. “Suited professionals are standing on dusty roads in a long-long queue to register for a paid event. It’s not a free event which entitles Amazon to treat professionals like garbage,” said a seller.
But once inside the smallish auditorium, the expectation of seeing the world’s richest man on stage, turned frustration into excitement. Neither tedious Amazon ads playing on loop, nor a one-and-half hour delay in starting proceedings dampened their spirits. Only Infosys founder Narayana Murthy made his displeasure felt as he abruptly cut short his speech. “I was supposed to speak for 20 minutes but will try and finish it in five minutes because I am not used to delays,” he said, rather tersely.
Read: Jeff Bezos bullish on India, will invest $1 billion to digitize small businesses
Bezos’ entrance was preceded by the arrival of his personal bodyguards, who appeared to have been picked straight from the US Secret Service. While they flanked the stage to face the crowd, the flamboyant 56-year-old entrepreneur strolled in to join other senior Amazon executives, in a printed blue Nehru jacket sourced impromptu from a local vendor at the venue. The excitement inside the packed hall was palpable.
Chatting with Amazon India head Amit Agarwal, Bezos spoke about the impact of climate change, the need to create space entrepreneurs, his childhood fantasies, failures and the potential of India on the global stage.
The Amazon boss also made a distinction between different kinds of failures. Some experiments are high-quality failures, he said. “Innovation is about maximising the rate of experimentation,” Bezos said, “Then there is operational excellence failure that you should try to avoid. When you know how to do something, you have to treat that differently.”
Speaking about the aspirations of his space company, Blue Origin, Bezos said, “I want Blue Origin to reduce the cost of access to space by such a large magnitude that we can have two kids in a dorm room start a great space company.”
While the overawed audience, which consisted mainly of small entrepreneurs, broke into a thunderous applause at Bezos’s tips on achieving success, street food vendors outside the venue took the cue and hiked the price of a tiny plate of bhel puri by at least Rs 40.
The billionaire e-commerce tycoon wore Indian attire — topped by a Nehru jacket — and took to flying kites with children as part of his charm offensive leading the US retail giant’s fresh bid of garnering a larger share in one of the most lucrative markets in the world.
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