The portals were accustomed to receiving equity stakes for these kinds of deals, but Bezos refused to give that—he was as stingy about handing out stock as he was about allowing employees to fly business-class. Instead, he paid cash and convinced each portal to throw in a freebie: links to Amazon books within search results. For example, if someone searched AOL.com for ski vacations, he would see a link to books about skiing on Amazon.
