Wired For The Bottom Line

Jeff Bezos's e-commerce vision materialized during a cross-country ride in a hand-me-down Chevy Blazer. Meg Whitman's light bulb flicked on when she heard a woman whose life had been changed by selling China horses. Jay Walker's epiphany came during a takeout lunch with a group of patent lawyers.

Now they lead companies at the forefront of an online shopping revolution. And of course they are incredibly rich. But focusing on their sudden, shocking wealth is an asset-backward way of looking at these entrepreneurs. Better to ask, which of these three will change your life more? Even though online buying represents a fraction of total consumer sales these days, it's a fraction that didn't exist a few years ago--and with sales estimated at $184 billion within three years, the curve is headed straight up. And that's just a springboard for a future that no one's figured out yet. Even tougher to predict is the way we'll be shopping online. Since e-commerce is so new, the question is still open as to the best ways to do it. Will the process generally ape purchasing in the physical world, or will we try more exotic schemes?

For hints on that, look to the three current icons of e-commerce. Each embraces a different model, and all three approaches have already begun to change the way we shop. Bezos, 35, of Amazon.com, is a khaki-clad Seattle dude heading a classic start-up built on selling by the traditional exchange, only without the bricks and mortar of storefronts. eBay CEO Meg Whitman is a refugee from old-style corporations, a mother of two who believes that lives will change and fortunes will be made when buyers and sellers participate in auctions. And Priceline founder Jay Walker, a Connecticut marketing whiz, cooks up business plans that would have been impossible before the Net; the first of these allows customers to name their own prices for airline seats, hotel rooms and, coming soon, supermarket items ranging from cola to detergent.

A few years ago no one had heard of these people. But in the next century (you know, the one that begins in 100 days or so) their ideas may well furnish your bookshelf, stuff your pantry, arrange your flights and rule your pocketbook--if they aren't already.

Jeff Bezos's laugh crashes his conversation every minute or so. It's a Tourette-like AHHHH ha ha ha haah bray that acts as a pointer to amusing phenomena in this interesting world we live in--the Amazon.com CEO's high-fidelity version of a raised eyebrow.

It's no wonder he laughs so much. One would have to be living somewhere far downriver on the actual Amazon not to have heard of Bezos's company by now. It's not only the dominant online bookseller (valued at $22 billion while Borders, with 260 physical superstores, is worth a bare billion), but has quickly become the biggest music retailer on the Net, as well as a seller of toys and consumer electronics. Amazon.com is the flagship for Internet commerce, living proof of the viability of its business model--selling goods directly to customers on the Net. So why hasn't it chalked up profits yet? Its officers explain that revenues are still being plowed into building a business that will become, says one exec, "the place where you can discover anything you want to buy online."