Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire

by Brad Stone

But Bezos intended to keep trying. He had two additional ideas for how to forge a connection with grocery shoppers and solve the quandary of CRaP. They remain among the strangest projects in Amazon’s history and provide an additional glimpse into its odd corporate rituals. The first, which Bezos proposed in a free-flowing brainstorm session in 2014, started as a notion he called “the steak truck.” Imagined as “an ice cream truck for adults,” the original suggestion was to stock a van or truck with steaks, drive into neighborhoods with lights flashing and horn blaring, and sell them to residents, as Doug Herrington remembered it. It would be convenient and a great deal for customers, since the meat was being sold in bulk. Eventually, the company might even predict demand and eliminate the inefficiencies and wasted food of supermarkets. The idea was perhaps just kooky enough that an executive was assigned to write a PR FAQ, the Amazon memo that kicks off the development of a new project by imagining its press release. The document gave the idea an official name: Treasure Truck. Bubble machines and digital displays would convey a carnival-like atmosphere while the truck sent out text alerts to the smartphones of nearby customers, announcing the item on sale that day.