I wouldn't necessarily say that 'Alpha House' or 'Betas' embodied a particular vision of Amazon of the kind of brand or programming they were gonna do. I think those were the first lucky creators who hit it right for them.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
What we want to be is something completely new. There is no physical analog for what Amazon.com is becoming.
The thing with 'Alphas' is that, even though it's sci-fi, I run into lots of people that have watched the show for various reasons. They're like, 'I had no expectation, and I'm totally blown away and fascinated.'
The campaigns and the models in them create the fantasy around the brand. It has always been about having strong images. Without that, we could not have gone into all the categories we did. It really has been the foundation from where the house of Guess was built.
There are lots of things about Amazon for which they deserve credit. They're innovative. There are lots of very, very happy Amazon customers. I'm not here to dispute that Amazon has been personally good for me or to say that they haven't been, so far, good to their customers.
If you watched companies such as Sony and Samsung grow, they focused first on features and then on industrial design, which made their products look and feel better.
I think that the Greeks were extremely ambivalent about the stories of Amazons: they found them both thrilling and rather daunting at the same time.
With 'The Angel's Game', there was a lot of pressure from the expectations - expectations from the book industry and from readers; it's natural.
There are moments when television systems are young and haven't formed properly, and there's room for lots of original stuff. Then things become more and more top-heavy with executives who are trying to guarantee the success of things.
I think the key to the whole appeal of Amazons is the egalitarian society. There was once a time and place where equality was taken for granted - it was logical and necessary - and I think most people can get the message that if it happened once, it could happen again.
I think Salesforce, going public very early on before they were profitable, it made a lot of sense for them because it got customers comfortable that these guys were going to have capital and be transparent about their business.