You might be wondering, “Why did you, Steve, send Jeff Bezos some jumper cables for his birthday in 2001?”
Amazon has a wish-list feature where you can list things you wanted other people to buy for you. And in 2001, Jeff Bezos had one, with jumper cables on it.
I figured, hey, I like Amazon, I’ll send the guy – who was not at the time the world’s richest man – some jumper cables, with a nice note saying “Happy Birthday, and I hope you never need these.”
(Meanwhile I created my own amazon wish list with some fancy stuff on it – I forget what exactly, some binoculars or something – because hey, you never know.)
And I actually got a gracious thank-you note from Jeff Bezos, thanking me for the jumper cables and agreeing that he too hoped he’d never need them.
(He did not wind up buying me anything off of my own wish list, however.)
But somewhere in my email, I have a thank-you note from Jeff Bezos, which I will cherish forever, assuming I can ever find it
I have another email saying “Great idea – thanks.”
From Steve Jobs.
I really should find THAT one and frame it.