Bezos was apparently contemplating a dedicated electronic reader as early as 2003—around the time Gemstar pulled the Rocketbook from shelves. Andreas Weigend, Amazon’s short-lived chief scientist, remembers Bezos speaking to his technical team about such a device and saying, “It’s for one-handed reading.” Upon imagining what the other hand might be doing, Weigend started to laugh out loud, and then everyone else in the small conference room did as well. “Jeff, the good kid that he is, had no idea what one-handed reading could refer to,” Weigend says.
