VentureBeat

37signals, the jazzy Web 2.0 company, takes funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — See the company’s announcement here about why. We last mentioned the company here. The company boasts: Since we launched Basecamp we’ve been contacted by nearly 30 different VC firms. We’ve never been interested in the typical traditional VC deal. With a few exceptions, all the VCs could offer us was cash and connections. We’re fine on both of those fronts. We don’t need their money to run the business and our little black book is full. We’re looking for something else…We found a perfect match in Jeff. Jeff is our kinda guy.

Why is Jeff so exceptional? We’ll take a stab at the answer. Amazon, an online site fighting in the tight-margined retail world, was losing lots of money during the Internet bubble, and still was losing money after it burst. Bezos managed to attract billions of dollars of debt to sustain his effort, even through those worst of times, when investors were pulling the plug on just about every other company in the red. Somehow, Bezos pulled it off. He is exceptional indeed.
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