we had to be resourceful and creative. but in order to expand beyond books, bezos needed capital and a lot of it. amazon.com jumped $5.50 on its first day of trading. so in may of 1987, in the middle of the dot-com frenzy, amazon went public. what s really incredible about this is this is day one. this is the very beginning. this is the kitty hawk stage of electronic commerce. day one. it s always day one became the bezos mantra. in his first letter to shareholders, bezos sketched out the foundation of amazon. it s all about the long term. i d liken it to babe ruth kind of calling his home run shot. it was audacious. bezos would stick to that long-term thinking even during amazon s toughest times. amazon stock has lost much of its luster. after the dot-com bubble burst, amazon s stock price