Bezos thanked John who has been assisting him since the past 19 years. The interview process included multiple rounds and sometimes back-to-back daylong interviews with top leadership at Amazon. Compared to Florida, where the same position earned $24 as of May 2017, Minnesota earned $55, and Texas earned $55. An obsession with customers is one of the reasons hailed as driving Amazon's growth from a small online bookstore working out of Bezos' garage in 1994 to a company worth more than $1.4 trillion.