Yahoo Finance Why tech billionaire Marc Lore isn’t big on reading books
Serial entrepreneur and tech billionaire Marc Lore doesn't have time to spend hours each day reading books. The guy is trying to change the world, after all.
“I always say that reading takes away time from thinking,” Lore said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above).
Lore added that although reading can trigger new thinking, going too deep into someone else’s point of view can lead to “tunnel vision,” making it difficult to see different sides of an argument.
It's hard to say that Lore's approach isn't working.
Lore founded Quidsi in 2005, a business made famous by its domain name, Diapers.com. Amazon bought Quidsi in 2010 for about $545 million, and Lore worked at Amazon until 2013. He then founded delivery outfit Jet.com.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, acquired Lore’s Jet.com in 2016 for $3.3 billion in cash. Although some on Wall Street viewed the purchase price as lofty at the time, there is no denying the impact Lore and Jet.com have had on Walmart since the deal closed in September 2016.
Walmart shut down Jet.com in March 2020, and Lore left his post as Walmart's U.S. e-commerce chief in early 2021.
Now he’s onto his latest venture.
Lore is the driving force behind the food delivery startup Wonder, which is where Yahoo Finance spent some time with the serial entrepreneur this week at a new Upper West Side location.
The basic premise for Wonder is to democratize good food. Lore plans to do that by licensing the menus of popular chefs such as Bobby Flay and Michael Symon, making their iconic dishes inside fixed locations, and delivering them right to your doorstep.
After founding Wonder, Lore took the CEO reins in late 2022 and instantly shifted the startup from delivering gourmet food in trucks to opening up physical locations. Lore thinks he could have thousands of these marketplace-like kitchens across the country.
So far, Wonder has raised about $850 million of capital, and Lore told Yahoo Finance he is eyeing a "couple hundred more" in funding this coming summer and fall.
Who needs books with this resume? Not a guy like Lore.
"If you want to innovate you have to be free-form thinking," Lore said. "It’s worked well, so I’m not fighting it."
Jennifer Shanker is a producer at Yahoo Finance.
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