Bezos’ wife MacKenzie criticizes new Amazon book

MacKenzie Bezos, the wife of Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, has written a tough review of a new book about the world's largest Internet retailer.

In the review, posted on Amazon's website Monday, MacKenzie Bezos criticized the book, The Everything Store, saying it has "too many inaccuracies."

She said that near the beginning of the book her husband is described as having read Remains of the Day by famous author Kazuo Ishiguro and was inspired to start Amazon by that book. But she said that Jeff Bezos did not read that book until after he started the company.

"The book is also full of techniques which stretch the boundaries of non-fiction, and the result is a lopsided and misleading portrait of the people and culture at Amazon," she added in the review.

She gave the book one star out of five. She was the only reviewer to give one star, as of Monday afternoon. The book has got 30 five-star reviews, 11 four-star reviews and two three-star reviews so far on Amazon's website.

The book, written by veteran Amazon reporter and Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Brad Stone, is the first in-depth look at a company that grew from a small online bookseller into one of the world's most successful and powerful Internet businesses.

"I talked to 300 people to get a picture of one of the most interesting and secretive companies around," Stone said in an interview with USA TODAY. "I stand by my book. To the extend that I made mistakes I will gladly fix them."

The book describes CEO Bezos as the talented mastermind behind the company's success. But it also describes him as a sometimes tough leader and portrays Amazon as a difficult place to work for some employees.

"Amazon draws extremely divergent perspectives, not only from competitors but from the people who work there," Stone added. "I tried to do justice to the remarkable achievements of the company and to the fact that it hasn't been an easy path from four people in a garage to a company with over 100,000 employe! es."

This is not the first time MacKenzie Bezos has come out publicly in support of her husband's company. Earlier this year, Bezos, who is an author herself, defended Amazon's role in the publishing world in an interview with the Times of London.