Jeff Bezos could see the potential for online commerce and knew that he had to build his Web-based business before every other entrepreneur also figured that out.

Bezos had only one requirement when he and his wife were looking for a house to rent in Seattle: It had to have a garage. Many of the entrepreneurs whom Bezos admired had started in their garages—including Steve Jobs, who created Apple with his friend Steve Wozniak in his parents’ garage. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come when Amazon’s computers and other equipment maxed out the space’s electrical capacity in a matter of months. Bezos joked that electricity was the reason companies had to move out of garages. “It’s not that they run out of room,” he said. “It’s that they run out of electrical power.”