Jeff Bezos: “You don’t understand my audience”

In the end, when people say the iPad or some other tablet device that allows you to read is a Kindle killer, Jeff Bezos says, what?

Well, you know, I get this all the time. And you know, first of all, I can say Kindle is succeeding. It's a very different product, but it's a little bit. I can give you an example. If I came to you, Charlie, and I said, charlie, I love your show. We gotta sex it up. We got, you know, the Charlie Rose Show.

You've got my attention.

We need fast cuts, you know, vicious arguments between your guests. We need to really sex up your show. You would say rightly to me, Jeff, I love you, man, but you don't understand my audience. We have a cerebral conversation here. It's what we do and it's how we're differentiated.

Right?

And so, you know, that's, that's our place. Yeah. And that's what happens to when people come to me and they say, Jeff, you got to have full motion video color on the Kindle. I say, why? You think Hemingway is going to pop more in color? You know, so we're doing a particular thing. And so when somebody says to me, you know, you need to add the full motion video and all these things that the iPad has, I say, well, you know what? You don't understand my audience. I love you, but you don't understand.

My audience and you don't understand how many Kindles I've sold.

Well, that's true. It's also working. That's the other argument I can use to rebut that.

But bottom line for you is that for Reading, for Reading, people want a designated device.

They want a purpose built device. That's where no trade offs have been made. Where every single design decision as you're walking down the process has been made to optimize for reading. The number one thing that people are doing on their iPad right now. If you look at the rankings, they're playing a game called Angry Birds where you throw birds at pigs and the pigs blow up. The number one thing that people are doing their Kindle right now is reading Stieg Larsson.