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As more companies have gone into e-commerce, online shopping has been widely adopted. Bezos started to lead Amazon into new areas, such as building its own supply chain, investing in the electronic reader Kindle and cloud computing Amazon Web Server, Stone says.

Zhang Yazhe, partner of the seed fund ZhenFund, says many companies have learned from Amazon in many ways - for example, in improving shipping.

"I've been to many e-commerce warehouses, such as Jingdong and Dangdang. But when I visit Amazon warehouses I realize it is years ahead of Chinese companies."

Mackenzie Bezos, wife of the CEO, has given Stone a one-star rating, the lowest, on Amazon. But Stone says he is quite proud of receiving that response.

"Amazon is a very controversial company, very polarizing. Customers love it; they can be very passionate about it. But you talk to anyone in book publishing in New York, or a small local bookseller who tries to serve the community, and they hate Amazon."