Jeff Bezos, Shah Rukh Khan, Zoya Akhtar Talk Amazon, Storytelling, Failures, Superstitions, and More: How to Watch

The Amazon founder also spoke about Gandhi, India, his last binge-watch, and climate change. SRK even made Bezos recite a line from one of his movies.

By Akhil Arora | Updated: 21 January 2020 12:46 IST

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Photo Credit: Amazon India

Jeff Bezos, Zoya Akhtar, Shah Rukh Khan in Mumbai on Friday

HIGHLIGHTS

• Bezos was on a trip to India — Delhi, Mumbai — last week
• SRK, Zoya had a long chat with Bezos in Mumbai on Friday
• For Amazon, it was an event to further court Bollywood

Last Friday, on his maiden visit to Mumbai, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos sat down with Shah Rukh Khan and Zoya Akhtar for a roughly forty-minute chat in which they spoke about going to physical stores, the difficulty of good storytelling, the biggest waste of their time, Bezos' advice for someone starting their career today, and superstitions. For Bezos, the last one was about wearing a specific pair of boots whenever his space company, Blue Origin, has an impending launch. And of course, Bezos was also asked about his early years with Amazon, the growth of Prime Video, and his trip to India, which saw him participate in kite flying and pay respect to Gandhi at his memorial in Delhi.

“Any day you fly a kite, that's a good day,” Bezos said in the beginning, before the conversation turned to his visit to Raj Ghat. Bezos thinks the principles of non-violence “will always be relevant and it's very hard to achieve.” After a couple of days in Delhi, Bezos came down to Mumbai. Asked about his first visit to the city, Bezos linked that to Amazon's India head, Amit Agarwal. Bezos said he has heard many intriguing stories about Amit's father over the last two decades he's known him, and how Amit's father has never been impressed. Bezos finally got to meet Amit's father the next day, and SRK joked that hopefully Bezos would impress Amit's father.