A search of Amazon's own Web site--and Barnes and Noble's as well--discloses that a book will be published later this month (in hardcover, no less) dubbed: "Jeff Bezos: King of Amazon.com."
According to Amazon's Web site, the 80-page book will sell for $21.90 and is aimed at kids aged 9 to 12, not Harvard MBAs or investors. Other Internet bookstores suggest that the Bezos biography will provide fodder for school book reports.
Time magazine named Bezos its "Person of the Year" in 1999, but since then the Internet bubble has burst, deflating the shares of scores of Net companies. Amazon shares closed Friday at $10, down from a 52-week high of $75.25.
The author of the Bezos book, Josepha Sherman, also has written a similar book for children titled "Bill Gates: Computer King." Sherman's other literary "claim to fame" includes: "Xena: all I need to know I learned from the Warrior Princess."
High-tech pioneers such as Bezos--and Gates--have taken their lumps recently, thanks to slumping stocks and executive "brain drain" at their companies.
But high-tech's "rich and famous," once relegated to the trade-book world, still appeal to America's youth. As one self-professed "computer lover" explained in giving the Gates' book a generous four-star rating: "I thaught (sic) that the author did a good job. I liked the book alot."
