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Lindsey Graham
Want to get more from business movers? Subscribe to Wondery for early access to new episodes, ad free listening and exclusive content you can't find anywhere else. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's April 1997. In a Midtown diner in New York City. 56 year old Leonard Riggio sits in a booth, his hands clasped tightly around a cup of coffee. Leonard is the executive chairman of Barnes and Noble. He's owned and run the company since the early 70s and transformed it from a New York institution into a multi billion dollar national chain. But today, Leonard's not happy. He stares into space, silently fuming. He looks up to see his younger brother weaving a path through the tables toward him. 43 year old Steven Riggio is also a senior executive at Barnes and Noble, but his demeanor is more controlled and thoughtful than his sometimes volatile brother. He slides into the booth across from Leonard. Well, you look like hell. Good to see you too. I need you to call the lawyers. Why? Because I need to sue someone, that's why. Steven shakes his head and raises his hand to a passing waitress. Can I get some coffee, black please? He turns back to his brother. Why do you need to sue? Who do you need to sue? Bezos. Bezos. Whatever his name is. The Amazon guy? Yeah, the Amazon guy. Why do you want to sue Jeff Bezos? Well, look at this. Leonard reaches into his coat pocket and produces a small blurry photograph. He slides it across the table. Steven squints and tries to understand. What is this? A computer screen? Yeah, it's this Amazon website of his. Look there. Right there in the corner. Leonard points to a small bit of text on the screen in the photograph, but it's barely legible. I don't know. What am I looking at? What does it say? I don't know. I need my glasses. You're wearing your glasses. Jeez. Give it to me. Leonard snatches the photograph back. It says Earth's biggest bookstore and you need to get your eyes checked. This is why you want a sue? Well, because it's a lie. Earth's biggest bookstore. It's not true. Yeah, it's just a slogan. They're not a bookstore. They're a book broker. Leonard, what's the difference? A bookstore has a store where people, you know, can walk through the door and grab books off actual shelves. Not this virtual clickety click stuff. Clickety click? And this is the argument you want to present to a court of law? Well, I just want to make them sweat. I want to let them know that we're onto this, that we're paying attention. Well, if you want my vote, it's the that we don't move forward with this. Overruled. Call the lawyers. Let's eat breakfast first. Leonard drops a wad of bills and handful of change on the table. Order something to go and then make the call. Stephen does order a breakfast to go and then does as his brother instructed. Barnes and Noble filed suit against Amazon.com for its use of the phrase Earth's biggest bookstore. The dispute would eventually be settled out of court, but the phrase would remain on Jeff Bezos. Leonard Riggio had lost, but this battle was only the beginning in a much larger war, and Barnes and Noble was in danger of losing far more to Amazon than a petty lawsuit. Business Movers is Sponsored by Attentive Imagine for a moment if you got a message from your favorite brand and it's so specific and personalized it feels like it was created just for you. Well, chances are if you got such a message, they're using Attentive, the SMS and email marketing platform designed to help brands build and connect with their ideal audience. Attentive helps marketers create unique messages for every subscriber, transforming the consumer shopping experience and maximizing marketing performance. It works like this. Attentive's AI learns what subscribers actually want based on their real time interactions with your brand and and that means it customizes the content, tone and even timing of every message so they always resonate. If you're ready to take your customers on a journey created just for them, visit attentive.combusinessmovers to learn more. Business Movers is sponsored by Grammarly. You only get one shot at a first impression. And if you're running a business that can mean all the difference between new client and no reply. Communicating exactly what you mean clearly, intelligently and with purpose can also stop a single bad email from turning into 20 and then a meeting on when every word your team writes is clear, concise and on brand, everything gets better. And teams that communicate better with Grammarly report 25% faster time to resolution for support tickets and 52% less time spent writing sales emails. All with enterprise grade privacy and security measures and seamless integration with the apps you use every day. Join over 70,000 teams and 30 million people who trust Grammarly to get results on the first try. Go to Grammarly.com enterprise to learn more Grammarly Enterprise Ready AI from Wonder E. I'm Lindsey Graham and this is Business Movers. At its height in the late 1990s, the Barnes & Noble retail chain was worth over $2 billion and had become the dominant bookseller in the United States. It had multiple stores in nearly every major American city. And whether it was New York or la, customers could enjoy the same vast selection and low prices that they knew from every other Barnes and Noble across the country. But in the early 2000s, the company's fortunes shifted rapidly. Sales began to plummet thanks to the emergence of a new rival, Amazon.com Amazon's combination of even lower prices and rapid home delivery offered readers a new way to shop. One that Barnes and Noble's traditional brick and mortar stores couldn't easily compete with. And as more and more customers embraced the convenience of Internet shopping, Barnes and Noble's valuation fell sharply. If the company was going to survive, it would need to adapt, find new leadership and new ways of doing business. But Barnes and Noble was no stranger to change. If it needed saving at the beginning of the 21st century, then it wouldn't be the first time. Long before it was a corporate titan, Barnes and Noble was just a struggling independent bookstore. The man who turned it around then was a young entrepreneur by the name of Leonard Riggio. Leonard would struggle to respond to the challenge of Amazon and the rise of the Internet. But back in the 1960s, he was the disruptor and he was the revolutionary with the ideas that would change an industry. This is the first episode in our three part series on Barnes and Noble. The Emperor FROM Little Italy It's Christmas, 1964 in New York, 32 years before Barnes & Noble's lawsuit against Amazon. A 23 year old Leonard Riggio stands outside the back door of his parents home, swigging a beer. He's braved the cold for some peace and quiet. His entire extended family is in the house behind him and he can hardly hear himself think. Leonard is studying engineering at New York University. He can't afford to attend full time, so he's taking evening classes and supporting himself by taking a day job at the university bookstore. During his time there, he's had a business idea that he now wants to share with his father. He just has to get his pitch right. Leonard finishes his beer and then tosses it in a nearby trash can. Then he heads inside to a wall of noise and heat. Leonard heads through the kitchen into the crowded living room. His father, Steve Riggio, is on the couch, deep in conversation with an uncle. Leonard puts a hand on his shoulder. Hey dad, can I borrow you for a sec? I'm in the middle of something, Lenny. That's kind of important. Alright, sure. Giving his brother an apologetic look, Leonard's father, Steve, gets up and follows Leonard into the dining room. Leonard shuts the door behind them, and Steve is left confused. What's up? Well, you know you've always told me to follow my dreams and that if I worked hard enough, I could make them real. Yeah. Well, dad, I've decided something. I want to open my own bookstore. Okay. Working at the university bookshop has made me realize that I can do it better. Because if my idiot boss can make a profit, I can make a bigger one. Okay, yeah. You finish your school and you work and get some experience, and someday you open a store. I support you in that. I gotta get back. No, no, Dad. I want to open a bookstore. Now? Now you got school. What about engineering? I want to drop out. Leonard's dad is a former boxer and. And reacts like someone's just taking a swing at him. Then Steve leans in close to Leonard, a bundle of muscle and anger. You trying to pull a fast one on me? No, I'm serious, dad. Just hear me out, man to man. Man to man? You're a kid. I've thought this through. Nah, a man wouldn't make such a stupid, impulsive decision. It's not stupid. Engineering is a job, dad. I'll get an income, sure. But books? They can make me wealthy. Or they could cost you everything. Lenny, when you got into nyu, your mother and I were so happy. So happy. But you know what we did after you told us? We cried. We cried because we didn't know how we were going to be able to afford it. Then the next day, you said you'd take night classes and work your own way through. It broke my heart, but it made me proud. You're almost done. You're going to have a college degree, son. Something your mother and I could only dream of. Please, Lenny, don't throw that away. Leonard looks at the floor and collects himself with a deep breath. Then he stands up straight and looks at his father. The way I see it, I can open four, five, six bookstores. An entire chain, Lenny. Dad, you've always said you got to pick the right moment to throw your punch. Well, this is mine. Trust me. I've already gone from the lowest clerk in the store to deputy manager. I know what I'm doing, and I can make this work. Leonard Riggio and his father rejoined the Christmas celebration without another mention of Leonard's business proposal. Just a few months later, Leonard dropped out of College and used $5,000 in savings and borrowed funds to open his first bookstore. The Student Book Exchange, or sbx, was located on Waverly Place in Greenwich Village. Unlikely though it might have seemed, it was on this spot, in the heart of New York's thriving beatnik culture, that Leonard would plant the seeds of a corporate empire. Leonard Riggio did not come from a wealthy or business background. His father was a former professional boxer turned taxi driver, and his mother worked as a dressmaker. The bookstore at New York University had been Leonard's first experience of the world of retail. And that job had not been glamorous. Leonard had helped stack shelves, assist customers and man the register. But having risen to the post of assistant manager, he'd also been able to closely observe how his boss ran the operation. He'd learned what to do and what not to do, and he'd steadily become convinced that he could do all of it better. So when he opened the Student Book Exchange in Greenwich Village in 1965, Leonard did not just want to compete with his former employer. He wanted to beat them. His initial strategy was undercut the competition. He'd always thought the university bookstore's prices were too high for students. And now he had a chance to prove that he could sell books for less and at a profit. SBX was an immediate hit. The stores didn't just sell books, it also bought them. So when a student was done with their studies, they knew there was a willing buyer for the textbooks they no longer needed. But it wasn't just the attractively priced books and generous buyback deals that appealed to Leonard's customers. Leonard made SBX part of the NYU community. This was an era of civil rights and the Vietnam War. Young people across the country were rising up against the establishment in a way the United States had never seen before. Leonard himself was in his mid-20s and sympathetic to the idealism of his friends. He had a photocopier in the basement of his store, and he let protesters use it to print up their anti war and anti capitalist material. To many students at nyu, the Student Book Exchange was more than a store, it was an ally. But Leonard himself was no radical. He still wanted to build SBX into a successful chain, and he still wanted to become wealthy. And the success of that first store on Waverly Place soon gave him the confidence and track record to expand. Over the next five years, he took over the contracts of several other campus bookstores across New York. He rolled out the SBX business model to each one. And the larger his chain became, the more he could squeeze suppliers for discounts and the more he could cut his prices. Despite his father's doubts about his retail dream. Leonard had done what he'd set out to do. He had built a chain of bookstores. Now, however, he only wanted more. While Leonard Riggio was beginning to carve out his bookselling empire in Greenwich Village, just blocks away, another business in the same industry was fighting for survival. At one time, Barnes and Noble had operated several bookstores across New York City and Chicago. But by the late 1960s, its future looked bleak. Barnes and Noble had begun in 1917 when a Chicago bookseller named William Barnes joined forces with a New York bookseller named Clifford Noble. Initially, their business had focused on wholesaling, selling textbooks to schools, libraries and colleges. But William and Clifford also maintained a small retail location to cater to the general public who wanted to buy single copies of books that Barnes and Noble stocked. During the 1920s, though, William and Clifford noticed that their bookstore in New York was becoming more and more popular. So they decided to take a chance and expand. They relocated the Barnes and Noble store to a larger space on Fifth Avenue. And hoping to attract a new type of customer, they stocked the shelves of their new shop with popular novels alongside their usual academic texts and reference books. This strategy proved wise. The Barnes and Noble on Fifth quickly became a destination for New Yorkers of all walks of life. And over the next four decades, the company's publishing and retail businesses continued to grow. Clifford Noble exited the firm, but he left his name behind and Barnes and Noble was able to survive both the Great Depression and World War II intact. Its stores were upgraded and expanded as the years passed and the successful company began styling its retail arm as the department store of books. All throughout this time, Barnes and Noble remained in the family of William Barnes until the 1960s, when his son, John Wilcox Barnes, passed away. His death left a vacuum at the top of the business. And amid this uncertainty, in 1969, Barnes and Noble was sold to a new owner. Amtel was a conglomerate based in Providence, Rhode Island. It had interests in aircraft component manufacturing and industrial products. It had annual sales the equivalent of around a billion dollars today. But it didn't have any experience in bookselling. Under Amtel's ownership, Barnes and Noble entered a rapid decline. And over the next two years, the retail chain lost both customers and its hard won reputation. By 1971, the once thriving business was reduced to its single flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. And Amtel didn't even want that anymore. But for Leonard Riggio, Barnes and Noble's struggling retail business presented the perfect opportunity. Here was a brand with a proud history and widespread Name recognition. It just needed someone with vision to restore its potential. And Leonard thought he was just the man to do it. He spent months studying Barnes and Noble's operations, analyzing what had gone wrong and imagining what it could be under his leadership. He believed that with the right strategy, he could not only restore Barnes and Noble's illustrious past, but go beyond it and transform the store into something even greater. But acquiring Barnes and Noble's retail operation would not be easy. Although he'd had success with the student book exchange, Leonard was still a young entrepreneur, barely even 30 years old. To make a bid for Barnes and Noble, he would once again need to convince his family it was the right move. And more importantly, he would have to find someone to finance the deal. But Leonard Riggio was nothing if not confident. In his mind, the acquisition of Barnes and Noble would be about more than just expanding his business. If he got this right, he would be able to revolutionize an entire industry and change the way Americans bought books forever. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Raiden was found dead in a canyon near L. A in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, the Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood in Crime, the Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of the Cotton Club Murder early and ad free right now by joining Wondery. Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls, the Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittney Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all. Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is Responsible. It's a real Whoville Whodunnit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out. Follow Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad free by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery App, Spotify or Apple podcasts. It's late 1970 at an expensive steakhouse in Manhattan, almost six years after Leonard Riggio founded the Student Book Exchange. Leonard slides an ashtray across the table as his dining companion lights a cigar. Frank Martin is a banker in his late 40s. He takes a satisfied puff of the cigar as a waiter clears her tail. Leonard has just treated Frank to a lavish dinner, and now it's time for business. Want to know a business tip, Frank? Don't take advice from a 29 year old. Well, touche. Though I could argue I might be the exception to that rule. What's a tip, kid? If you're going to ask someone a favor, feed them first. And if you can, get them a little drunk, too. Speaking of which, would you like another drink? You think I'm an idiot? I don't have time for idiots. I mean, when you invited me for dinner, I could have just told you to come by the office, ask me whatever you wanted there, but I'm smarter than that, see? I'll take a free meal. Another good tip. Yeah, Always take the free meal. Always, kid. What do you want, though? Well, I want $1.2 million. You want what? I want $1.2 million. You're out of your mind. Why's that? 1.2 is a perfectly reasonable business loan. You run a bookstore, Leonard. I run several bookstores. A. And what do you want to buy? Another bookstore? Barnes and Noble. The old thing on fifth. Yeah. They're letting it go at a bargain price, right? Probably for a reason. From what I've heard, that place has gone downhill real fast. Amtel can't wait to get rid of it. Yeah, because their problem is they don't know squat about book selling. Barnes and Noble is a New York icon, and I want to turn it around. But why? You're doing pretty well, I hear. Mostly from you, admittedly, but why bother? Student book exchange? Yeah, that only gets you so far. Hippies will buy books at the Student Book exchange, but moms won't. You wouldn't, right? No, but Barnes and Noble, now that's a respectable sounding name. So you want to pay $1.2 million for a name. Not just the name. The location, the store, their books, their customers, their history. Let's say your business plan is sound. How am I supposed to convince my bosses to write a check to a 29 year old who wants to buy a half dead bookshop? Leonard smiles and pulls out a cigar of his own and grabs Frank's lighter off the table. Just tell them that the 29 year old is Len Riggio. Tell him he's opened seven bookstores in five years and he's going to open 700 more. Leonard Riggio's pitch seemed to pay off. The rest of Frank Martin's questions that night revolve around finer details. Leonard's business plan. And Leonard had an answer for all of them. Then the two got into the numbers. And by the end of the dinner, Leonard felt confident that he had secured the financing he needed. He was about to make his first major acquisition as a businessman, and it was a feeling he discovered he liked. In May 1971, Leonard Riggio completed the purchase of the Barnes and Noble flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Now he just had to turn the struggling retail business around. First, he decided he would merge the old with the new. He would combine the name of Barnes and Noble with the business model of Student Book Exchange. SBX stores became Barnes and Noble stores, and the Barnes and Noble flagship adopted the SBX way of doing things. That meant low prices and a warm welcome. Leonard wanted people to spend more time in all of his stores, so he provided benches, tables, chairs, windows, public restrooms. Amenities Barnes and Noble had never previously provided. But as Leonard walked the aisles of his new flagship store, he quickly noticed something else was wrong. It was a fundamental flaw he'd seen in plenty of other bookstores. There weren't enough books. Most bookstores in the early 1970s carried only a small, heavily curated inventory. That left customers with limited choice. And they were often required to place special orders for anything beyond the most popular titles. Leonard was convinced this was a mistake. He wanted his customers to be able to see and buy almost any book on the market. So he immediately began to stock Barnes and Noble's shelves with more books. Leonard's goal was to offer customers a wider variety than they could find anywhere else. And over the next few years, he worked closely with suppliers and publishers to ensure that Barnes and Noble carried everything from bestsellers to niche academic works. The result was a bookstore that could boast over 150,000 unique titles, more than any other retailer in the country. That enormous catalog was to be Barnes and Noble's calling card. Now Leonard had to ensure that people knew about it. In the early 1970s, most bookstores only promoted themselves through print advertising or word of mouth. But Leonard had grown up with television and recognized the power of mass media. So in 1974, Barnes and Noble became the first bookstore to advertise on tv. The commercials ran on local channels in New York, showing customers at smaller bookstores asking for titles in vain before being advised to try Barnes and Noble. Do you have any books on electrical wiring? Sorry, have you tried Barnes and Noble? Barnes and Noble. Of course. Of course. These commercials won advertising awards. But more importantly, they were a hit with customers. And Leonard was quick to see the results on the balance sheet. Foot traffic at Barnes and Noble's New York stores was up, and sales increased, too. By the mid-1970s, the company's total revenues had reached 32 million, the equivalent of around 200 million today. Leonard's strategy seemed to be paying off. Barnes and Noble was re establishing itself as New York's favorite bookstore. And to keep up this momentum, Leonard turned toward a familiar strategy from his slashing prices. Most bookstores priced their books at rates set by the publishers. This practice was known as resale price maintenance. Bookstores could theoretically set their prices lower, but publishers didn't want to put downward pressure on prices, and most stores didn't dare cross them. Leonard was more willing to take a risk. In 1975, he introduced a 40% markdown on select titles from the New York Times bestseller list. Perhaps due to Barnes and Noble's famous name or its rapid growth, publishers raised few complaints. And that gave Leonard the confidence to go even further and introduce a new approach to bookselling, one that no one had tried before. The same year he cut prices on New York Times bestsellers, Leonard opened another bookstore in the heart of Manhattan. Located right across the street from the chain's flagship. The Barnes and Noble Sales Annex was a 40,000 square foot megastore. Its stock of 350,000 books was arranged over two stories. This was a place for Leonard to experiment. There were books for a buck and hurt book sales. Foreign titles could be picked up for less than a quarter, and in the potluck section, customers could browse through old volumes and broken sets. In some areas of the store, books were even priced by weight rather than individual title to encourage customers to buy in bulk. Leonard knew that carrying armfuls of discounted books around would be taxing, so he provided customers with a new shopping cart. Barnes and Noble had once prided itself on being the department Store of books. But with this new annex, it was becoming more like a supermarket. By the summer of 1976, the Barnes and Noble sales annex in New York was selling 10,000 books a day. Leonard was fundamentally changing the business of bookselling in America and making tens of millions of dollars every year as he did it. But as Barnes and Noble's profits grew, so too did Leonard's ambitions. In the 1980s, he began expanding. The company began beyond New York. By the middle of the decade, Barnes and Noble operated 33 regular stores and 37 sales annexes. These were primarily in the northeast of the country, though. But Leonard wanted to take Barnes and Noble nationwide. To find the financing for this expansion, Leonard wouldn't have to beg bankers for money over steak dinners. This time in a deal that would be worth over $850 million today. In late 1986, Barnes and Noble acquired the Beach Dalton bookselling chain. It already had 797 retail locations, primarily in shopping malls. So overnight, Barnes and Noble became the second largest bookseller in the United States. Leonard applied his established winning formula to these newly acquired stores. They were redesigned, with spacious aisles, comfortable seating, and of course, a vast selection of books. By the late 1980s, Leonard's pursuit of rapid expansion had made Barnes and Noble a household name in America. But as the company continued to grow, so did its legion of critics. Barnes and Noble's sheer size gave it enormous purchasing power. By buying titles in large quantities, Barnes and Noble was able to negotiate significant discounts from publishers. Deals that smaller independent bookstores simply couldn't access. Those stores had once been the backbone of the book industry, but now they were struggling to compete. Many went bust or were even bought by Leonard's company, further strengthening Barnes and Noble's power in the industry. Leonard didn't mourn for them. As far as he was concerned, their high prices had made books inaccessible to the masses. He was in the business of bringing books to the people, as many of them and as cheaply as he could. Still, Barnes and Noble was earning a reputation as the bully on the block. This criticism would eventually even make its way to Hollywood. The romantic comedy youy've Got Mail would tell the story of an independent bookseller fighting to save her family owned shop. The corporate chain threatening her store would bear an uncanny resemblance to Barnes and Noble. But Leonard ignored the critics. He remained focused on further expansion. By the early 1990s, Barnes and Noble stood at the pinnacle of the American book industry. But even as Barnes and Noble reached these new heights, forces were stirring in the background. Forces that Leonard Riggio simply didn't understand. The Internet was emerging as a new frontier in the retail world, bringing with it a different kind of competitor. This new Challenger would have no shelves, no cashiers, no aisles, no locations. It would be no nowhere, but soon. Everywhere. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US History. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Christa McAuliffe into space aboard the space shuttle Challenger along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes, and in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondry. You can join Wondry in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today. On January 5, 2024, an Alaska Airlines door plug tore away mid flight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of a plane that carried 171passengers. This heart stopping incident was just the latest in a string of crises surrounding the aviation manufacturing giant Boeing. In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of damning scandals and deadly crashes that have chipped away at its once sterling reputation. At the center of it all, the 737 Max. The latest season of Business wars explores how Boeing, once the gold standard of aviation engineering, descended into a nightmare of safety concerns and public mistrust. The decisions, denials and devastating consequences bringing the Titan to its knees. And what, if anything, can save the company's reputation now? Follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge business the Unraveling of Boeing early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. It's March 1994 in a modest computer lab at Barnes and Noble headquarters, 23 years after Leonard Riggio acquired the company. The room is sparse and windowless, its fluorescent lighting harsh and insistent. Barnes and Noble Executive Vice President Steven Riggio sits before a bulky computer as it logs onto the Internet in a flurry of beeps and whistles. Steven looks up from the machine as his Brother and boss, 53 year old Leonard Riggio, steps into the room behind him. Leonard looks around Cautiously. Something about computer. Computers puts them on edge. All right, Steve, what's all this? I thought we were going to be looking at numbers for the new store in Chicago. Yeah, we will. But first I want to show you something. Man, I got a lot of fires to put out today. No, no, it's important. Sit down. Steven gets up and ushers a reluctant Leonard into the seat in front of the computer. Browser is loading a rudimentary web page containing graphs and some text. Leonard peers at it skeptically. All right, what am I looking? It's kind of cool, right? This is bloomberg.com bloomberg. Stock market stuff. Yeah, except the news is on. The computer comes in every day. How's that happen? Well, via the World Wide Web. And what's that? The information superhighway. Come on, Len, you're reading the papers, right? Basically, it connects people's computers. Why should I care about that? Well, look at this. Stephen leans over Leonard to type on the computer's keyboard. He presses Enter. And then slowly, another web page pops up. Its banner title reads Virtue Mall. Leonard frowns again. All right, now, what was this? It's an online mall. No, it's not. It's words on a screen. Look, people log on to this site, they browse items and then they buy items. They send their credit card number via fax. People can shop on their computers Now, Len, who would want to do that? Well, Virtue Mall seems to think. I think a lot of people will. Nah, you don't buy it. I don't buy it. It's too high tech, too complicated. People, they want to go into the store. They want the store to be nice and have a bunch of books they can look at. That's what we do. I don't have any interest in this computer thing, this information railroad, whatever, superhighway land. And this is the future. No, no. The future is 500 more Barnes and Noble stores. I think you should let me experiment with this. Sounds like it's going to cost me more money. It's going to cost a little. The more it costs, the longer it takes me to get to 500 more stores. Look, just let me build the Barnes and Noble website. We can be the first online bookstore. You some kind of computer whiz now? No, but I'll find some guys. And then you'll have to pay them. Len, this is where things are going. Apple has a website. So does the BBC, Encyclopedia Britannica. They all do. Barnes and Noble is an institution just like them. Right? We should be on the web. Leonard stares at the computer. Monitor thinking, all right, but this is only because you're my brother. Keep it small, keep it cheap. Don't screw it up. Steven Riggio immediately began making calls, searching for someone who knew the ins and outs of the Internet and could help Barnes and Noble set up its own website. But what Steven didn't know is that they were already a few steps behind. Another entrepreneur had come up with the idea of an online bookstore as well. And unlike Leonard Riggio, he was not thinking small. In the spring of 1994, a 30 year old Jeff Bezos sat at his desk at a hedge fund in New York, staring at a piece of news that would change his life. It was a report on the rapid growth of the Internet. The study projected that YouTube usage was set to grow by 2,300% annually. Jeff knew his numbers. That was part of his job. And if the Internet was going to be as big as this report suggested, then Jeff knew it would change everything about society, the economy and how businesses made their money. He decided he wanted a piece of that growth. So Jeff boldly quit his lucrative job on Wall street, packed up his belongings and set out on a cross country drive from New York to Washington State. Alongside him was his then wife, Mackenzie Scott, who helped him draft a business plan for what would eventually become an e commerce website in Washington. Jeff assembled a small team and got to work. Their office was just a rented garage, but by 1995, Jeff's E commerce website was ready to go live. It launched under the name Amazon.com, a name chosen to evoke a vast river of products, as well as guarantee it a place near the top of the early Internet's alphabetical list of websites. Amazon's homepage was simple. A basic list of book titles and a tagline that read Earth's biggest Bookstore. It was a bold claim, and in the early days, it was complete hyperbole. Nevertheless, Jeff worked tirelessly alongside his team, packing books by hand, shipping out orders, and handling customer service engagement inquiries himself. He didn't have much money yet, or many customers, but he had something else. A vision of what the Internet would one day become when people would not only buy books online, but just about everything else as well. So while the Internet was still new and chaotic in 1995, Jeff was patient. He believed that consumers would eventually embrace the convenience of shopping from home. And he built Amazon on that belief. Meanwhile, back in New York, Leonard Riggio saw the Internet differently. To him, it still seemed more like a tool for academics and hobbyists than a serious threat to his business. It would be years before Barnes and Noble had a proper website where customers could buy books. Instead, Leonard's focus remained firmly on expanding the company's physical footprint. By the mid-90s, Leonard had spent more than two decades transforming, forming Barnes and Noble, ushering in an age of the book superstore, revolutionizing the American retail landscape and displacing countless mom and pop operations along the way. To Leonard, the opening of each new Barnes and Noble store was another sign of his dominance of the bookselling industry, both now and in the future. But where Leonard Riggio envisioned a familiar future of shelves and shopping carts, Jeff Bezos had something very different in mind. A new world of algorithms and warehouses serving a store that never closed. But for now, Leonard saw no reason to worry about the ambitions of a small startup in Washington State. Barnes and Noble was still by far America's largest bookseller, a business empire that stretched coast to coast. But if Leonard Riggio had picked up one of the many history books that stocked his own stores, he would have soon learned that no matter how vast or powerful they seem, all empires eventually fall from Wonder E this is Episode one of Saving Barnes and Noble for Business Movers. On the next episode, Amazon's meteoric rise starts to spell real trouble for Leonard Riggio as Barnes and Noble struggles to adapt to the Internet age. If you like business movers, you can unlock exclusive episodes found nowhere else on Wondery and access new episod early and ad free. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a survey@wondery.com survey if you'd like to learn more about Barnes & Noble's history, we recommend the Noble Legacy by Betty Noble Turner and the Late Age of Print by Ted Streepus. A quick note about our dramatizations in most cases, we can't know everything that happened, but all our reenactments are based on historical research. Business Movers is hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship Audio editing by Mohammed Shahzi Sound design by Molly Bach Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written and researched by Cody Hoffman. Executive producers are William Simpson for airship and Aaron O'Flaherty, Jenny La Beckman and Marshall Louie for wondering.