Although Amazon has yet to make a profit, its rapid growth suggests that in some specialist markets like books, internet retailing could yet prove a major force.

The Money Programme, BBC, 1997

The BBC archive is a must watch. There are so many lessons in reassessing attitudes and assumptions from the past. Lots to learn about how we get things wrong, and to reverse engineer how some clearly get it right.

To think how Bezos went from footnote-like interviews like this on little BBC programmes, to 16 years later having books like The Everything Store written about him. That book is what it took for me to properly understand the strategy he had back then, when most people were still thinking the internet was fad.

Botham’s of Whitby meanwhile (go back and watch the whole video) are still about, but seemingly not revelling quite as much in their early internet innovations as Amazon. Their Japanese language option has sadly disappeared also.