Just in time for Cyber Monday viewing, we can show you (in the video above) the latest brainstorm from retail genius Jeff “Amazon” Bezos. It’s the Amazon “octocopter,” a drone aircraft that the company says one day will make it possible to deliver purchases to some customers in just 30 minutes.
Bezos unveiled his new toy on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday night, with host-personality Charlie Rose telling the audience, “Tonight, for the first time, you’ll be introduced to perhaps Amazon’s boldest venture ever.”
The segment gives a pretty thorough overview of how Amazon fills orders, estimated at 300 per second for Cyber Monday, at its nearly 100 fulfillment centers worldwide. At one point, Rose asks Bezos, “What is Amazon today?” Bezos responds:
“I would define Amazon by our big ideas, which are customer-centricity, putting the customer at the center of everything we do; invention — we like to pioneer, we like to explore, we like to go down dark alleys and see what’s on the other side.”
Bezos also emphsized that his company begins projects with a long view in mind, being willing to wait five, six or seven years for a return on investments instead of being impatient for, and needing, a more immediate payback. That willingness to wait explains in part the company’s research-and-development effort on aerial delivery, which Bezos told Rose “is years away” from reality.
Bezos said the octocopters as currently configured could carry parcels up to five pounds, which would account for 86 percent of Amazon’s sales, and could make deliveries within a 10-mile radius of fulfillment centers. Another selling point for the drones, he says: They’re green, being powered by electric motors. Summarizing the challenges still facing the project, he said “the hard part here is putting in all the redundancy, all the reliability, all the systems you need to say, ‘Look, this thing can’t land on somebody’s head while they’re walking around their neighborhood. … I don’t want anybody to think this is just around the corner.”