Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Attended Montessori Preschool

 

As a preschooler, Jeffrey P. Bezos displayed an unmatched single-mindedness.  By his mother’s account, the young Bezos got so engrossed in the details of activities at his Montessori school that teachers had to pick him up in his chair to move him to new tasks.

 

For the full story, see: 

"THE GREAT INNOVATORS; Jeff Bezos: The Wizard Of Web Retailing Amazon.com’s founder made online shopping faster and more personal than a trip to the local store."  BusinessWeek  (DECEMBER 20, 2004).

The above is a reprint.  The original story appeared as: 

Robert D. Hof.  "THE TORRENT OF ENERGY BEHIND AMAZON."  BusinessWeek  (Dec. 14, 1998):  119.

 

Google Hires “Interesting” “Geniuses” & Provides Them a Workplace Where Interesting Geniuses Want to Be

 

   A break lounge at Google’s Manhattan offices.  Source of photo:  online version of the NYT article cited below.

 

You could be forgiven for not knowing that a satellite Google campus is growing in downtown Manhattan. There is no Google sign on the building, and it’s hard to catch a glimpse of a Googler, as employees call themselves, on the street because the company gives them every reason to stay within its candy-colored walls.

From lava lamps to abacuses to cork coffee tables, the offices may as well be a Montessori school conceived to cater to the needs of future science-project winners.

. . .

“These are power geniuses,” said Jane Risen, a statuesque brunette who works in training for the sales staff and is considered among the best dressed on campus — she was wearing a brown blazer from the Gap. “If they don’t have the same social skill or style sense, they’re extremely interesting people or else they don’t get hired.”

. . .

The strategy of keeping employees happy and committed to spending endless hours on campus seems to be working. Richard Burdon, 37, an engineer who joined Google two years ago, has been staying past midnight to prepare for the introduction of a project. (Google’s Manhattan engineers have been responsible for developing Google Maps and are working on some 100 other projects.)

“Google is about as interesting as starting your own startup because you can really follow your own ideas,” said Mr. Burdon, who previously worked for Goldman Sachs, Sony and I.B.M. The only time he could remember leaving the office during the workday was to buy a friend a birthday present.

 

For the full story, see: 

DEBORAH SCHOENEMAN.  "Can Google Come Out to Play?"  The New York Times  (December 31, 2006).

(Note:  ellipses added.)

 

GoogleManhattanActivities.jpg   Work and non-work at Google’s Manhattan offices.  Source of photos:  online version of the NYT article cited above.

 

Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin “Really Enjoyed the Montessori Method”

 

MOM-Web-Cover-2007-02.png MOM-Web-Brin-2007-02.png   Source for the image of the Moment issue cover, on left: http://www.momentmag.com/issue/index.html   Source for the image of the first page of the article, on right:  online version of the Moment article cited below.

 

Sergey, who turned six that summer, remembers what followed as simply “unsettling”—literally so. “We were in different places from day to day,” he says. The journey was a blur. First Vienna, where the family was met by representatives of HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which helped thousands of Eastern European Jews establish new lives in the free world. Then, on to the suburbs of Paris, where Michael’s “unofficial” Jewish Ph.D. advisor, Anatole Katok, had arranged a temporary research position for him at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques. Katok, who had emigrated the year before with his family, looked after the Brins and paved the way for Michael to teach at Maryland.

When the family finally landed in America on October 25, they were met at New York’s Kennedy Airport by friends from Moscow. Sergey’s first memory of the United States was of sitting in the backseat of the car, amazed at all the giant automobiles on the highway as their hosts drove them home to Long Island.

The Brins found a house to rent in Maryland—a simple, cinder-block structure in a lower-middle-class neighborhood not far from the university campus. With a $2,000 loan from the Jewish community, they bought a 1973 Ford Maverick. And, at Katok’s suggestion, they enrolled Sergey in Paint Branch Montessori School in Adelphi, Maryland.

He struggled to adjust. Bright-eyed and bashful, with only a rudimentary knowledge of English, Sergey spoke with a heavy accent when he started school. “It was a difficult year for him, the first year,” recalls Genia. “We were constantly discussing the fact we had been told that children are like sponges, that they immediately grasp the language and have no problem, and that wasn’t the case.”

Patty Barshay, the school’s director, became a friend and mentor to Sergey and his parents. She invited them to a party at her house that first December (“a bunch of Jewish people with nothing to do on Christmas Day”) and wound up teaching Genia how to drive. Everywhere they turned, there was so much to take in. “I remember them inviting me over for dinner one day,” Barshay says, “and I asked Genia, ‘What kind of meat is this?’ She had no idea. They had never seen so much meat” as American supermarkets offer.

When I ask about her former pupil, Barshay lights up, obviously proud of Sergey’s achievements. “Sergey wasn’t a particularly outgoing child,” she says, “but he always had the self-confidence to pursue what he had his mind set on.”

He gravitated toward puzzles, maps and math games that taught multiplication. “I really enjoyed the Montessori method,” he tells me. “I could grow at my own pace.” He adds that the Montessori environment—which gives students the freedom to choose activities that suit their interests—helped foster his creativity.

“He was interested in everything,” Barshay says, but adds, “I never thought he was any brighter than anyone else.”

 

For the full story, see:

Mark Malseed.  "The Story of Sergey Brin; How the Moscow-born entrepreneur cofounded and changed the way the world searches."  Moment Magazine  (February 2007).

 

Ernie Chambers Right in Supporting Parents’ Role in Education

For several months, the Omaha community has been roiled by the hostile efforts of the Omaha Public School (OPS) district to seize the schools and territory of long-established suburban school districts. Here ia an email that I sent to my representative in the Nebraska unicam on Sun., 4/9/06:

Dear Mr. Brashear:
I have appreciated your hard work as my representative in the legislature, and I have always voted for your re-election.
We believe strongly in giving our 11 year-old daughter a Montessori education. The Millard School District is the only area district that has had the entrepreneurial initiative to offer such a program, so we filled out the paperwork to option Jenny into the Millard District.
I strongly resent the implication of OPS that those who choose other school districts necessarily do so for racial reasons. We would have been very happy to stay in OPS (and it would have been more logistically convenient), but OPS does not support the diversity of educational options that Millard does.
Ernie Chambers is often wrong, but he is not always wrong. Dividing OPS into three districts would be a modest step toward increasing parental choice. Parents of all races want to be free to choose.
Tomorrow, I hope your vote will be to support freedom and competition.
Thank you for considering my views.
Sincerely,
Art Diamond