Off The Cuff

Viral photo posted by Jeff Bezos shows first-ever job listing for Amazon

August 23, 2022
Bharat Times

The ad reappeared on Twitter on Monday.

This week in 1994, Jeff Bezos published Amazon’s first hire job listing. At the time, Mr. Bezos was a little-known entrepreneur who had left his well-deserved job to start an e-commerce company, which was described in advertising as a “well-capitalized Seattle start-up”.

The ad reappeared on Twitter on Monday. According to screenshots of job listings on Usenet, a pre-Internet message board, Mr. Bezos was looking for “extremely talented” software developers to “help lead commerce on the Internet”. They wrote that candidates should be able to build large, complex systems “about a third of the time the most capable people think possible”.

The job listing reads, “You should have experience designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable) systems, and you should be able to do so in about a third of the time that most competent people would be possible.” think.”

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It states that candidates should “expect talented, motivated, thorough and interesting colleagues”. Specific coding languages ​​were also listed, such as C++ and Unix. Soft skills were also highlighted. “Top notch communication skills are essential,” the posting read.

Mr Bezos was looking for people with a BS, MS or PhD in Computer Science or an equivalent field. “Familiarity with web servers and HTML would be helpful, but it is not necessary,” he wrote. Mr Bezos also said that in return, the selected candidate would get “meaningful equity ownership”.

“We are an equal opportunity employer,” said the Amazon founder. He ended the list with a famous quote from computer scientist Alan Kay, who wrote, “It is easier to invent than to predict the future”.

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Less than a year after this job listing was posted, Amazon began selling books online, marking the first step toward becoming the e-commerce giant it is today.

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