Boston-Based Nepali Tech Entrepreneur’s Experience Meeting Jeff Bezos

Before Amazon became the giant it is today, before AWS powered half the internet, and before Jeff Bezos was one of the richest people in the world — he was just a guy on a roadshow, pitching investors on a big idea.

And in April 1997, Boston-based Nepali tech entrepreneur Sanjay Manandhar sat across from Bezos for about a 45-minute conversation — and what he heard changed how he thought about technology forever.

“My Friend’s Uncle Has a Bookstore...”

At the time, Bezos was preparing Amazon to go public and was meeting with potential investors.

Sanjay, who was working in investment and tech, booked a 45-minute time slot to meet with him.

Right before the meeting, a fund manager joked:

“My uncle has a bookstore too. How is this guy any different?”

So Sanjay asked that very question.

And Bezos smiled and replied:

“We’re not an online bookstore. We’re a technology company.”

That answer caught Sanjay’s attention.

A Visionary Before the World Knew His Name

In that meeting, Bezos laid out his vision clearly:

• 80% of Amazon’s employees were engineers, building software — because that was Amazon’s intellectual property (IP).

• They would license their tech to other companies, like Target — even though Target barely saw Amazon as a real competitor back then.

• They didn’t need warehouses or inventory. Books were just a database.

• And most importantly: “Why stop at books?” If they could sell books online, they could sell anything.

Bezos also said something bold that stuck with Sanjay:

“We’ll make some big bets. Some will fail. But some will be amazing successes.”

One of those bets? AWS (Amazon Web Services) — which today powers massive parts of the internet.

“He Was Thinking in Decades”

Sanjay left the meeting deeply inspired. Bezos didn’t sound like a startup founder just trying to sell books — he was already thinking years ahead, about technology, infrastructure, and scale.

Later, Sanjay even wrote a full Medium article about this meeting — CLICK ON THIS LINK TO VIEW.

Why It Still Matters

This wasn’t just a meeting — it was a moment where a visionary explained the future before most people could see it.

For Sanjay, who had already brought the internet to Nepal using a satellite and a laptop, it was another reminder that big change starts with bold ideas — and the courage to think differently.