I'm positively baffled by the stereo bit. He had this really impressive thing built, was really happy someone noticed it and yet didn't play a thing on it? Not even some presentation audio, just to show off? Such a bizarre mix of showing off yet trying not to show off. I feel like most people, when they come into possession of something they consider cool, would jump out of their socks at the chance to show it to their guests.
It was during the lunch time during a short conversation. There likely wasn’t time to play anything without soaking up a lot of time.
Also, I’ve met lots of audio people who seem to like the design of the system more than actually listening to music.
If this was a dinner party, I’d expect a demo and playing music to show it off. But for a lunch break at a work meeting to basically a stranger, it seems to make sense that he didn’t play anything.
There might not have been anything worth playing because Jeff Bezos might not have been a music person. According to "The Everything Store" by Brad Stone:
Bezos's colleagues and friends often attribute Amazon's tardiness in digital music to Bezos's lack of interest in music of any kind [...] Colleagues remember that on the solemn road trip from Target's offices in Minneapolis after 9/11, Bezos indiscriminately grabbed stacks of CDs from the bargain rack of a convenience store, as if they were all interchangeable.
I mean, it's a company meeting unrelated to music, why would he show off his stereo?
And if he'd done that, there would be a story about how "Jeff Bezos' stereo costs more than I make in five years, and he made a bunch of employees listen to it in his boat house". Not saying the author of this article would have written it, but somebody would.
