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Speaker 1: M. This is Mesters in Business with Very Renaults on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Here this week on the podcast, I have

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Speaker 1: a special guest. Brad Stone is the editor at Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: News who covers technology and the author of a number

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Speaker 1: of books. The one that just came out, Amazon Unbound,

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Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire really

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Speaker 1: quite fascinating. I had previously read his um his first

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Speaker 1: book on Amazon, The Everything Store, and when that had

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Speaker 1: come out, I think it was Amazon was still a

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Speaker 1: successful company, but not the dominant juggernaut it's become. And

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Speaker 1: this book really is, you know, the sequel to that

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Speaker 1: that talks about how from the low point in when

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Speaker 1: Amazon actually had a pretty substantial negative year in the

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Speaker 1: stock market down over all of these new drivers of

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Speaker 1: revenue and growth, we're just teeing up. And what ends

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Speaker 1: up happening is the company just starts to hit on

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Speaker 1: all cylinders. And that's before the pandemic, and then the

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Speaker 1: pandemic essentially doubles so many different sectors within Amazon. They

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Speaker 1: were a company that was made for a work from

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Speaker 1: home lockdown situation, UH, perfectly positioned and took full advantage

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Speaker 1: of it. Over the course of those years, Amazon became

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Speaker 1: the second largest employer in the country behind Walmart. Bezos

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Speaker 1: became the wealthiest man in the world. And Amazon just

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Speaker 1: dominates so many areas of our everyday lives, from uh

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Speaker 1: supermarkets and and delivery of just about everything to Amazon

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Speaker 1: web servers too. You you just go through everything they do,

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Speaker 1: Amazon Prime, in Amazon Video, and it's it's just endless.

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Speaker 1: They have changed the fabric of our society and our economy,

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Speaker 1: and Stone does a fantastic job telling the story of

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Speaker 1: how that happened. I really enjoyed the book, and I

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Speaker 1: think you'll really enjoy our conversation. So, with no further ado,

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Speaker 1: my interview with Amazon Unbound author Brad Stone. This is

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Speaker 1: Mesters in Business with Very Results on Bloomberg Radio. My

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Speaker 1: special guest this week is Brad Stone. He is the

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Speaker 1: senior executive editor for Technology at Bloomberg News. Previously, he

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Speaker 1: was the Business Week writer covering tech in Silicon Valley,

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Speaker 1: and before that he was the tech correspondent for The

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Speaker 1: New York Times and Newsweek. He is the author of

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Speaker 1: four books, including The Everything Store, Jeff Bezos, and The

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Speaker 1: Age of Amazon From. His most recent book is Amazon Unbound.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos and the invention of a global empire. Normally,

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Speaker 1: at this point I would say, brad Stone, welcome to Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: But since you worked for Bloomberg, let me just say

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Speaker 1: welcome to Masters in Business. Thank you very great to

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Speaker 1: be here. So I have to start off with the

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Speaker 1: simple question, and I know you define this in the

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Speaker 1: earlier book, Bezos or Bezos? How do you pronounce his name?

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Speaker 1: It is Bezos, yes, and I have encountered uh and

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Speaker 1: I'm sure he has as well, numerous alternative pronunciations, but

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Speaker 1: indeed it is Bezos. Interesting. So so let's start out

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Speaker 1: a little bit with your background. I mentioned you're the

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Speaker 1: senior executive editor at Bloomberg News. You were a writer

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Speaker 1: at Business Week for ten years, and before that the

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Speaker 1: New York Times and and Newsweek. How did you start

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Speaker 1: covering technology? What led you into that space? Yeah, well, Verry,

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Speaker 1: I was way back before the New York Times. I

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Speaker 1: was had a once proud magazine known as Newsweek, and um,

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Speaker 1: I was a junior reporter kind of just looking for

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Speaker 1: an avenue, um, something that I could you know, write about,

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Speaker 1: where my my articles would appear and what was a

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Speaker 1: very competitive magazine at the time. For for journalists. And

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Speaker 1: this was the nineties and the Internet was becoming more popular.

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Speaker 1: And I had, you know, used the Internet and become

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Speaker 1: familiar with it while I was in a college and

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Speaker 1: I just started writing about it. And then they moved

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Speaker 1: me out to Silicon Valley in good timing, just just

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Speaker 1: in time for the crash. So I read, I read

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Speaker 1: a bunch of your New York time pieces. Um, but

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Speaker 1: they were YouTube and iPads and Google Search. How did

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Speaker 1: you ultimately you happened on to Amazon as a subject matter.

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Speaker 1: I was covering Amazon at the time. Um, it was

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Speaker 1: it was a little bit overlooked. If we go back

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Speaker 1: to two thousand and six, two seven, you know, the

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Speaker 1: eBay market cap was larger than Amazon's at the time.

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Speaker 1: It's really remarkable to remember that the Amazon was stopped

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Speaker 1: as maybe haven't picked the wrong business model for the

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Speaker 1: Internet age. You know, Google was a much more high

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Speaker 1: profile and interesting company, it seemed like. And yeah, I

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Speaker 1: remember doing a couple of stories about the introduction of

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Speaker 1: prime and fulfillment by Amazon and and and Amazon Web Services.

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Speaker 1: And I mean I basically I was I would talk

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Speaker 1: to Bezos. Um. When when Amazon got into the fight

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Speaker 1: with the book publishers around kindle pricing. He was. He

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Speaker 1: was on the phone quite a bit arguing Amazon's case,

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Speaker 1: and I was always fascinated by the company. I was

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Speaker 1: fascinated by Bezos. And then when I went over to

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Speaker 1: Business Week and wrote a couple of stories about Amazon

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Speaker 1: there it was it was really just sort of opportunistic

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Speaker 1: writing my first book. I felt like nobody had really

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Speaker 1: done the great Amazon story, and books had been devoted

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Speaker 1: to the other big tech companies. Of course, I had

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Speaker 1: no idea what kind of juggernaut it was still to become,

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Speaker 1: but it seemed to me that it had been a

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Speaker 1: little bit overlooked. And that book really I read it

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Speaker 1: on vacation. I think in like it was a good read,

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Speaker 1: and you had fairly decent access to Bezos prior to that.

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Speaker 1: How cooperative was he for the book Everything Store Right.

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Speaker 1: I can't quite remember the timeline, but I went in

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Speaker 1: there to meet with him to pitch the book, and

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Speaker 1: he was very receptive. You know, Amazon has this weird

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Speaker 1: cultural ritual where they start every meeting with a dot

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Speaker 1: with by reading a document. So I brought him a

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Speaker 1: document to read and spiking the book and yeah, and

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Speaker 1: he read it in sort of silence, and then he said,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's too early to write the Amazon book.

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Speaker 1: I did talk to him a couple of times on

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Speaker 1: news things while I was reporting on it, and he

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Speaker 1: allowed me to talk to his parents and friends and employees,

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Speaker 1: but he was pretty distant. It was limited access for

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Speaker 1: the first book. Uh that that's really kind of interesting.

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Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about your research and

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Speaker 1: writing process. The new book, Amazon on Bound is very

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Speaker 1: much told chronologically. How do you go about putting together

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Speaker 1: this monstrous right? Well, let me continue the story. So

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Speaker 1: after after the last book, the Everything Store comes out

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Speaker 1: in twos and thirteen, and Bezos does not like it

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Speaker 1: very I don't know if you recall this, but he

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Speaker 1: had his wife at the time, Mackenzie Um and some

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Speaker 1: employees like including Andy Jafsey, the new CEO. They all

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Speaker 1: wrote one star reviews, and I thought, I thought Amazon

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Speaker 1: was wasn't aren't they against people buying reviews that that

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Speaker 1: violates their policies? I guess it was on the arm,

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Speaker 1: So right they been, and they bought it and read it,

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Speaker 1: I guess. Um. So anyway, there was a chill, and

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Speaker 1: and a couple of years went by, and and then

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Speaker 1: I and then at some point I realized that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the books took off and had come to be seen

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Speaker 1: as kind of the definitive history of early Amazon. But

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Speaker 1: I realized that so much had happened Alexa and the

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Speaker 1: global marketplace and Bezos becoming the wealthiest person in the world,

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Speaker 1: that there were simply more story to tell. And so

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Speaker 1: I went back to Amazon, probably a little cheekily and

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Speaker 1: just told them that I was going to do it.

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Speaker 1: And this time there was no meeting with Bezos, but

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Speaker 1: they did allow they did allow me to talk to

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Speaker 1: more more than a dozen senior executives, members of the

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Speaker 1: Senior Leadership team, the FES team. Yeah, and and they

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Speaker 1: basis a lot of going to talk to friends, and

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Speaker 1: so the access wasn't all that different. But the foundation

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Speaker 1: of the book of both books really were the employees

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Speaker 1: who had been there, had participated in key projects, and

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Speaker 1: then who had left or were there. But we're willing

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Speaker 1: to sort of talk carefully because obviously Amazon and most

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Speaker 1: companies these days they try to lock up former employees

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Speaker 1: or current employees and nondisclosure agreements. I'd like to say

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Speaker 1: that Amazon has a lot of surface area, right more

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Speaker 1: so than a lot of other companies. It does so

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Speaker 1: many things, and there's actually very few people with any

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Speaker 1: kind of a bird's eye view over it. Maybe really

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Speaker 1: just Jeff Bezos, I mean Andy Chassis and Jeff Wilkie,

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Speaker 1: the former head of the retail business, you know, certainly,

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Speaker 1: but they're extremely disciplined and careful in what they say.

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Speaker 1: So it's really just it was almost like aggregating enough interviews,

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Speaker 1: enough conversations that I could start to piece together enough

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Speaker 1: of a picture of this entire company. And then also,

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Speaker 1: and by the way, very not just Amazon, put the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post blue Origin Bezos and Space company his basis,

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Speaker 1: his personal type of the natural Enquirer, like lots of

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Speaker 1: different avenues to go down. So it's really almost just

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Speaker 1: a sheer exercise and talking to as many people as

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Speaker 1: it could. And so people went on the record, even

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Speaker 1: fail the inner circle of people without giving you a

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Speaker 1: lot of pushback. Did you find this book was a

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Speaker 1: little more challenging because it's such a moving target Compared

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Speaker 1: to the first version, the version that you wrote in

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Speaker 1: Yes and no, it was easier, and that the Everything

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Speaker 1: Store was kind of a calling card so I could

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Speaker 1: talk I could reach out to hundreds of people, and

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Speaker 1: they instantly knew who I was and what I was

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Speaker 1: up to, right and and and in some cases I

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Speaker 1: had earned a measure of trust by what they saw

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Speaker 1: as a as an accurate retelling of the company's early years.

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Speaker 1: But it was more difficult in that it was it

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Speaker 1: posted an enormous organizational and structural challenge. So in the

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Speaker 1: Everything Store, it was a very linear story. It was

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Speaker 1: a group of it was one guy in Wall Street

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Speaker 1: and then a group of people in a garage and

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Speaker 1: bellevue with an idea to sell books on the Internet

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Speaker 1: straight through, you know, through the dot com boom, almost

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Speaker 1: cratering in the dot com bust, and then a revival.

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Speaker 1: It feels iconic that that story in a way. And

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Speaker 1: then this story is a sprawl of things happening at

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Speaker 1: the same time. I mean, it's Alexa at the and

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Speaker 1: the entry in the India and Prime Video and the marketplace,

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Speaker 1: and the grocery business and the logistics operation and adds

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Speaker 1: and and all the other stuff I mentioned. So it

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Speaker 1: was an organizational challenge. But in some ways this story

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Speaker 1: was actually the better story. I mean, when you think

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Speaker 1: about it from a pure value creation point of view,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Everything Store covers the creation of about

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Speaker 1: eighty billion dollars in market capitalization, and this this story

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Speaker 1: covers the creation of one point six trillion. So in

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Speaker 1: some ways, you know, this was the more dramatic business story. Sure,

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Speaker 1: just the numbers are just mind blowing, and we'll talk

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Speaker 1: about some of the numbers a little later. Any chapter

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Speaker 1: stand out as particularly challenging to write or particularly fun

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Speaker 1: to dive into. I started this book in two dozen seventeen,

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Speaker 1: so this was before h G two, before um the

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Speaker 1: Antitrust Subcommittee report into the big tech companies, before obviously

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Speaker 1: before the pandemic. But the funnest and the most unexpected

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Speaker 1: story was bezos is tangled with the National Enquirer and

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Speaker 1: Medium post about the bodies and the Washot post I

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Speaker 1: had never expected. Well, let me step back, because you'll

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Speaker 1: appreciate this. Most most companies will draw, you know, we'll

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Speaker 1: build a spense around the private lives of their key executives. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's seen as maybe a no go area. And Amazon

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Speaker 1: was fiercely is fiercely protective of bezos Is privacy, and

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Speaker 1: Bezos and is seriously protective of his family's privacy. And

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Speaker 1: so for this thing to blow up at the end

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Speaker 1: of two thousand, a pen as I'm writing the book,

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Speaker 1: you know, and an alleged affair, a trashy tabloid newspaper

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Speaker 1: accusations of political interfere inspired the Trump administration, a hall

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Speaker 1: of mirrors, of crazy characters and private detectives and you know,

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Speaker 1: unethical Hollywood characters and perhaps mbs. I mean, it was

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Speaker 1: beyond anything that I had imagined, so in terms of

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Speaker 1: like challenge and and maybe entertainment value. And I just

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Speaker 1: couldn't sort of couldn't believe that this is where not

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Speaker 1: only this is where, you know, something that I had

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Speaker 1: pried open, but this is where Bezos had kind of

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Speaker 1: led the world and lead his own story. Was astonishing

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Speaker 1: to me. Let's talk a little bit about that empire

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Speaker 1: and put some some flesh on the bones. In terms

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Speaker 1: of numbers, I like the way you broke the book

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Speaker 1: up into three sections, and each section starts with four

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Speaker 1: data points. Annual revenues, number of employees, the market cap

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Speaker 1: of Amazon and and Bezos is net worth, and some

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Speaker 1: of the numbers from just over a decade, they were

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Speaker 1: doing thirty four billion in sales in and then by

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Speaker 1: it's a hundred and thirty six billion, and then by

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Speaker 1: last year it's two hundred and thirty three billion. And

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Speaker 1: along the way, they went from thirty three thousand employees

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Speaker 1: to three hundred fifty two. Now they have about six

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Speaker 1: hundred fifty thousand employees. Uh, and Bezos went from a

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Speaker 1: mere fifteen billion in net worth today's worth well over

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Speaker 1: UM was one five. Now he's coming up on two

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Speaker 1: hundred billion. And by the way, very employees, it's over

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Speaker 1: a million now over a million. Yeah. Sword So so

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Speaker 1: that was the question I was gonna ask, is how

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Speaker 1: much of the numbers are pandemic related and how much

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Speaker 1: of this is just an acceleration of all these trends

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Speaker 1: at Amazon that were in place before last year even

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Speaker 1: you know began. I mean, I think it's both the

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Speaker 1: pandemic was an accelerant and that growth might have happened,

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Speaker 1: and the pandemic just moved everything forward. If if people

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Speaker 1: are wondering, doesn't roll back to Amazon, let people go,

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think what the pandemic did

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Speaker 1: is that it made people more familiar with UM, you know,

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Speaker 1: next Amazon's next day delivery, UM possibilities, grocery shopping. It

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Speaker 1: increased Amazon's profits, and what they always do with that

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Speaker 1: is they reinvested in the more Amazon So it created

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Speaker 1: profilming centers closer to major cities, closer to our homes,

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Speaker 1: more trucks on the highway, more events in our neighborhoods,

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Speaker 1: more data centers. And what that means is, you know,

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Speaker 1: Amazon spent the pandemic basically capturing more advantages, uh, the

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Speaker 1: advantage advantages of performance centers close order to our homes

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Speaker 1: and faster delivery. And it's not going to unline that.

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Speaker 1: And it just means that shopping offline for food and

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Speaker 1: for everything else is going to be more convenient, and

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Speaker 1: that is probably frightening for offline competitors supermarkets. The other

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Speaker 1: thing Amazon's doing is creating physical retail stores, so that's

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Speaker 1: still capturing of all retail people shopping in actual stores,

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Speaker 1: and Amazon itself stamping out these Amazon Fresh grocery stores.

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Speaker 1: So it had a productive pandemic. You might you might

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Speaker 1: say it was sort of perversely lucky because it had

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Speaker 1: all the advantages going into it, and now it has

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Speaker 1: even more. So we're gonna get to some of the acquisitions.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk about Amazon Prime and Whole Foods, but before

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Speaker 1: we do that. Early in the book, you talk about

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Speaker 1: sort of the tens low point for Amazon, which was October.

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Speaker 1: They had kind of stumbled with the Amazon Phone and

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Speaker 1: a lot of the big growth engines were just starting

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Speaker 1: to ramp up. I have to ask, who is possibly

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Speaker 1: worse at assessing padditors then Microsoft, Steve Balmer? Is there

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Speaker 1: anybody who is? I mean, if this guy, this guy

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Speaker 1: missed everything from the iPhone to the iPod two and

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Speaker 1: and he was dissing Amazon in like they don't make

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Speaker 1: a profit? Who nobody's interested in those guys? I mean,

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Speaker 1: I love your usage of him. What attracted you to

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Speaker 1: using him as the uh, the patsy and as I

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Speaker 1: think I call him the contrarian indicator. Um, but let

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Speaker 1: me give a little bit of the defense of Steve

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Speaker 1: Balmer and lay to us in fourteen. Um, he wasn't alone, right,

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Speaker 1: There were there were investors like David Einhorn who were

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Speaker 1: who were adding Amazon to the to the bubble stock basket.

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Speaker 1: Um analyts we were mixed. At the time. There was

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Speaker 1: a lot of speculation about the underlying profitability of Amazon

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Speaker 1: Web Services, which the company was disguising on its income statement.

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Speaker 1: At the R and yet we have to have to

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Speaker 1: understand that Amazon is deliberately opaque, and you know, in

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Speaker 1: a way that it's sort of surprising the sec You know,

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Speaker 1: our other regulatory authorities haven't been more aggressive in getting

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Speaker 1: the company to reveal more, but it is. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: want the world to know how profitable a business Amazon

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Speaker 1: Web Services is, and it's not showing profits. It's disguising

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Speaker 1: its profits on its income statement by investing in more

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Speaker 1: data centers, more fulfillment centers, expansion. At that point, the

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Speaker 1: expansion in the India begins, and it's spending a billion

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Speaker 1: dollars a year at that point a prime video. So

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Speaker 1: no one has any idea because Bezos is sitting there

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Speaker 1: at the craft table making new bets, and you know,

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Speaker 1: Balmer just happens to be a bit of a loud

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Speaker 1: mouth and expressed it at exactly the wrong time. Because

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Speaker 1: you can go back and march the exact moment when

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Speaker 1: Amazon has to finally reveal a WS as financials and

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Speaker 1: the thing starts to take off. Huh. It's interesting that

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Speaker 1: it was such a strategic advantage, uh, to not discuss

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Speaker 1: Amazon Web Servers for so long, and they were able

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Speaker 1: to to get away with that because of um it

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Speaker 1: wasn't more than ten percent of the revenues. Is that

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Speaker 1: was that the rationale for hiding that. I think that's right.

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Speaker 1: That they could another business. Another CEO is going to

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Speaker 1: want to show that off. It's going to want to

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Speaker 1: impress investors, particularly because if you look at the stock

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Speaker 1: performance in two thousand fourteen, I mean my recollection is

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Speaker 1: the stock went down and you know, or at least

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Speaker 1: it was embattled, and you know, another CEO is going

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Speaker 1: to say, well, it's gonna like cater to their own ego,

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Speaker 1: uh and to their recruitment needs of their company into

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Speaker 1: the image and want to release that. But Basos, across

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Speaker 1: the ten years of this of a WS growth, you know,

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Speaker 1: he thinks long term, he thinks competitively. He didn't want

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Speaker 1: to tip off competitors to how good of a business

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Speaker 1: this was, and he kept it hidden. I mean that

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Speaker 1: takes a little bit of a remarkable act of CEO

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Speaker 1: patients and bravery to do that. But they felt like

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Speaker 1: they had a gold mine there and they wanted to

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Speaker 1: mine it for whatever it was worth. Let's see in

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Speaker 1: let's see what the stock price looks like. Bear with

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Speaker 1: me one second while I pull this up. Oh no,

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Speaker 1: this was this was not a good year. They were

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Speaker 1: down for the full year, and you're right the bottom

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Speaker 1: while there was a low over the summer in in May,

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Speaker 1: and then there was another low in October. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't surprise me that that bomber nailed the bottom.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of people were pretty skeptical in an

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Speaker 1: otherwise pretty decent year for the market, right right, And

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Speaker 1: and when you look back at two thousand fourteen, it's

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Speaker 1: so remarkable that that there was such skepticism because that

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Speaker 1: that is the year that Amazon introduces Alexa. It is

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Speaker 1: the year that they started preparing to to introduce the

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Speaker 1: financials of aws UM. I think I think that might

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Speaker 1: have been the first year that Amazon Studios originals start

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Speaker 1: to come out, So the first batch of TV shows

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Speaker 1: that weren't all that good, but I think it marked

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Speaker 1: a transformation of Amazon Prime into more of a content service.

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Speaker 1: So uh and and then and then the expansion in

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Speaker 1: the India really begins in earnest in two thou fourteen,

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Speaker 1: and so they're placing a lot of vests there and

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Speaker 1: to the public markets and two investors. Everything looks kind

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Speaker 1: of dire, but it's really the beginning of probably the

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Speaker 1: most impressive wealth creation, maybe even in the history of business.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Um, it's just it's such a perhaps perhaps

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Speaker 1: alongside Apple, you know, the kind of scale that we

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Speaker 1: haven't really seen before. Right, So so let's talk about

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Speaker 1: some of the big winners that are driving that growth. Um,

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Speaker 1: Amazon Prime. This really turned out to be quite a

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Speaker 1: game change or not only making clients stickier, but really

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Speaker 1: taking Amazon to a whole new level. It really has evolved.

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Speaker 1: So back into thousan five, you know, when they conceived it,

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Speaker 1: Um Basis wanted to kind of take shipping charges off

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Speaker 1: the table. Like he knew Amazon could compete with selection,

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Speaker 1: it could be competitive with prices, but the convenience just

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Speaker 1: wasn't there to take many days for people to get

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Speaker 1: their packages. And at the time Amazon had maybe a

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Speaker 1: dozen fu filment centers in the US. So taking shipping

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Speaker 1: off the table, trying to offset it with what was

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Speaker 1: the seventy nine dollar a year charge it made It

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Speaker 1: made a lot of sense. And then you you wrap

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Speaker 1: people up into the Prime ecosystem UM, and they spent more.

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Speaker 1: And then you fast forward five seven years and Basis

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Speaker 1: sees that maybe shipping isn't going to be that much

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Speaker 1: of a differentiator anymore in a world where Amazon has

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Speaker 1: hundreds of fulfilment centers around the country where one day

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Speaker 1: or two day shipping might be possible even without Prime membership.

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Speaker 1: And so we kind of surprises all of his executives

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Speaker 1: by saying we're gonna put free TV shows and movies

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Speaker 1: into this. And now today I would say that's probably

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Speaker 1: more more important to the prime to Prime membership, the

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Speaker 1: fact that you get access to prime video, prime music.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they've got I think it's Amazon Music, mkindle club.

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Speaker 1: People don't even know what it gets to you, and

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Speaker 1: maybe that's part of it. They're sort of this hazy,

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Speaker 1: ambiguous it's a lot of it. That's a lot of things,

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Speaker 1: and people tend to maximize the value. It's want to

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Speaker 1: maximize the value of any club they belong to. So

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Speaker 1: it's a sort of neat psychological trick and and and

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Speaker 1: the center of the Amazon operating model. And and then

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Speaker 1: related to the expansion of groceries, but as well as

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Speaker 1: coming up with um physical locations near I think it

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Speaker 1: was prime members was the purchase of whole foods, which

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Speaker 1: you discussed in the book. You know, remind me a

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Speaker 1: little bit of the Google YouTube purchase. The increase in

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Speaker 1: stock price essentially made the purchase free. To tell us

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Speaker 1: about the whole Foods purchase. I so I devote a

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Speaker 1: whole chapter to Amazon's adventures slash misadventures in groceries. And

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Speaker 1: it's really interesting because this is one area where Bethos

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Speaker 1: wasn't as far sighted as some of his executives. He

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Speaker 1: had people advocating for an expansion in the grocery delivery

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Speaker 1: as far back because two thousand and seven he thought

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Speaker 1: that this would be an opportunity that would be there

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Speaker 1: for Amazon. Um and and executives were writing papers and

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Speaker 1: I quote some of them in the book. UM, I

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Speaker 1: love the one that was called Amazon's futurist crap, which

404
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 1: stood for can't realize the profits and was a lot

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Speaker 1: of basically consumables and grocery store items. And it wasn't

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Speaker 1: until Google introduces Google Express and instat Cart kind of

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Speaker 1: comes unto the scene, starts raising torrents of money that

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Speaker 1: he starts moving faster. And the challenge with fresh food

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Speaker 1: is that is that you need to hold different fulfillment

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Speaker 1: network refrigerated and rapid deliveries Mainly people want to be

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Speaker 1: at their homes when they when they get when they

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Speaker 1: get their deliveries. And um and and nothing that Amazon

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Speaker 1: was trying is working very well. There was Prime Now

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Speaker 1: and Amazon Fresh, and so Whole Foods comes along in

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Speaker 1: two seventeen. It's a distressed asset um. John mackew is

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Speaker 1: beset on all sides by activists investors clinging to his

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Speaker 1: organic selection in an age of broader selection and prevalent

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Speaker 1: junk food and supermarkets. And and Bezos buys it. Now.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting because amazon s futuring groceries isn't necessarily whole food.

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Speaker 1: They're creating these Amazon Fresh supermarkets. But I think they realized,

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Speaker 1: or Bezos realized, that he was going to need to

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Speaker 1: learn a lot about the grocery businesses if Amazon was

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Speaker 1: going to fill its potential there. So let's talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about some of their products. Um that we're winners,

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Speaker 1: will talk about Kindle, go on, Alexa and fire TV.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing to think a CEO said, I

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Speaker 1: have an idea for a reader and we're going to

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Speaker 1: build this from scratch. Tell us a little bit about

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Speaker 1: the genesis of Kindle and what it meant for Amazon,

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Speaker 1: whose roots were in book selling, right right. So we're

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Speaker 1: going back now to to some of the material I

432
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: cover in the Everything Store, And this is probably about

433
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: two four and Bezos is basically watching Apple vaporized his

434
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: music business with the iPod and itube store, and he

435
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 1: understands that a digital transformation is coming from media and

436
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,399
Speaker 1: that Amazon's brand is still very tightly intertwined with the

437
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:49,400
Speaker 1: book business, and concludes that if Apple were to ever

438
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: move into digital books, that Amazon would be vulnerable. And

439
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: so he basically tells his leadership team, the f team,

440
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: that they're going to build a knee reader. At the time,

441
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: Sony had tried to do it and had sort of

442
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: failed with the Sony Reader. And there's all sorts of

443
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: objections because what does Amazon at the time know about

444
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: building devices, And Beza says, I know it's hard, We're

445
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: going to do it, and it's a three year process.

446
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: It's actually very similar to the Alexis story which I

447
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: tell him in Amazon Unbound. But he drives the initiative,

448
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: he sponsors it, he authorizes all sorts of investments, he harangued,

449
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: He gets his his sales folks to go to New

450
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 1: York City and harangue the book publishers and the unlocking

451
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:33,119
Speaker 1: more of their catalogs for the for the e book business.

452
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: They had been very hesitant because it wasn't a major

453
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: business for them. Amazon uses its leverage and strength with

454
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: the publishers to basically get them to digitize their books,

455
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: and then they announced the thing into two thousand and seven,

456
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: and that is the beginning. Um that is the beginning

457
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: of Amazon and devices at leads to everything from Alexa

458
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: to the failed fire phone, to the fire TVs to

459
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: all sorts of things we haven't seen yet. And it's

460
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: a great illustration of Bezos really inventing his company in

461
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: every turn and thinking ambitiously in an unbound way about

462
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 1: what Amazon could become. It wasn't just a retailer, it

463
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:14,439
Speaker 1: wasn't just a bookseller. It wasn't just an enterprise software company.

464
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: When it's cloud business, he doesn't he doesn't place any limits,

465
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to me, and what what Amazon can be,

466
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 1: and that kind of tease up the Echo, which is

467
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: its own product category. If this was a standalone product

468
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: from a new startup company that had sold hundreds of

469
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: millions of units, they would be a really successful company.

470
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 1: Tell us how how did the echo come about? Well,

471
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you see the very I don't I

472
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: don't know if it would be. Um, Amazon probably sells

473
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: those units at close to cost. And and this will

474
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 1: get to the origin. You know, it's the brains of

475
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 1: Alexa are in Amazon webster uses and and I'm sure

476
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: it gets a nice wholesale rate on that. And that's

477
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: where Beza started with this. He sent an email to

478
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: his his colleagues and late to us in ten we

479
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: should build a computer whose brains are in the cloud

480
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:17,479
Speaker 1: that's completely controllable by your voice. Because he's thinking at

481
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: the time, how does he exploit Amazon's advantage in cloud computing,

482
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: and how does he create some consumer facing applications. And

483
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: he's a big science fiction fan and he's totally engrossed

484
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: with the possibilities and improvements and voice search at the time.

485
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: And that's that email spawns Alexa, and very much like

486
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 1: the kindle, he gets in the in the weeds, and

487
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: he sponsors it, and he authorizes the hiring of all

488
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: sorts of oppressive voice scientists and they bring it out

489
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: into the world and collect data in a very surreptitious

490
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: and interesting way. Um and and now it's so tightly

491
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 1: interwoven into the Amazon empire that we don't know if

492
00:29:57,520 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 1: that if it makes money. I don't think it's been

493
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 1: as evolutionaries maybe they have hoped. It's certainly not a

494
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: conversational computer or or really a useful every day assistant

495
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: in the way that they hoped. And there's not really

496
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: a productive app ecosystem as there is with the iPhone.

497
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: So it's interesting. Um. It certainly has helped to change

498
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: Amazon's image, and they market the thing, and I think

499
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: it helps their their image as an innovator. Alexa. What's

500
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: the title of brad Stone's new book? I don't have

501
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: an answer. I guess Masos is not too happy with

502
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: you these days. I didn't hear. It's sorry. I don't

503
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: have an answer to that. All right, we'll go after

504
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: the get get it to fix it. Did you see

505
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: in the new book, I I fleuped out the identity

506
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: of the voice Alex. I was very proud of that. Yes,

507
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: that was really interesting. It's a woman who's a voiceover

508
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: artist in Colorado? Is that right? What's right? Right? Na?

509
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: Nina Raleigh? And you know I had I had recalled

510
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: that the identity of theory had been unveiled a couple

511
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: of years ago, and so I was very curious. Okay,

512
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: who's voice is springing from Alexa? And and before we

513
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 1: move on from the section of of what's been driving

514
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: Amazon's growth, I mean, Amazon Web Services is just a monster,

515
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: isn't it. Oh, it's it's it's there's a I think

516
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: it's a fifty billion dollar run rate. Um. You know,

517
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: it's a ten year old division and tide Amazon. It's

518
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: in and it's changed the way companies and universities and

519
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 1: governments compute and run their businesses. Um, it's it's created,

520
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: you know, massive new business opportunities from Microsoft and IBM

521
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: and Google. It is and and it's showing no signs

522
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: of slowing down. So when you when you think about

523
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: you know, Bethos who really had some of the initial ideas,

524
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: and and Andy Jassey's success running it over the past

525
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,479
Speaker 1: ten years. And yes, it's it's been remarkable. Earlier we

526
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: were talking about some of the drivers of growth of Amazon.

527
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: There are two other areas that help drive growth, but

528
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: not without some problems. And let's talk about both of them.

529
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 1: The first is the third party market sort of turning

530
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 1: Amazon into a quasi eBay in some ways tell us

531
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: a little bit about what that did, opening Amazon up

532
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: to basically anyone who wants to sell goods on their site.

533
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 1: I would say in the first years it was it

534
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: was it was pretty positive. I mean, um, creating a

535
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 1: third credit marketplace, added selection, and added product categories that

536
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: Amazon wasn't going to touch itself create minted a lot

537
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: of success, particularly in the West. And the key turning point,

538
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: and the story that I'm telling in the book and

539
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: the chapter devoted to marketplace, is when Amazon quite consciously

540
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: in about two thousand fifteen, started pursuing the global selling

541
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 1: opportunity of basos stalk companies like Ali Baba with all

542
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: the express and a startup called wish dot com basically

543
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: conducting a form of geographic arbitrage, allowing sellers and manufacturers

544
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: and China and other other parts of the world to

545
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: sell in the West and and to lower lower prices

546
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: and increased selection. And they pursued task in a very

547
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: Amazon like way, building systems, self service systems and translation tools,

548
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: aggregating inventory and lowering the cost of ship and then

549
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: suddenly the marketplace tilt in favor of of overseas sellers,

550
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 1: and you have a lot of disgradled sellers in the West,

551
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: and an explosion selection lower prices and all kinds of casks, counterfeits, fraud,

552
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: exploding cover boards, UM, and and perhaps a real depreciation

553
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: and the quality of products that are sold on Right.

554
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: That's where I wanted to get to, is that. Look,

555
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: my my first Amazon purchase was when my college roommate

556
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: gave me a gift certificate and I actually hunted down

557
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: with that. First purchase was in December. UM burn Rate

558
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: was the book. But I'm I'm kind of surprised at

559
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: after working so hard to maintain quality and to guarantee

560
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: lowest prices and to guarantee a very high level of

561
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:23,720
Speaker 1: customer service, suddenly there's just fakes and stuff that's poorly

562
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: made and falls apart. You mentioned the hoverboard. Um, a

563
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 1: number of houses had burned down, and half of the

564
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 1: you write in the book half the houses that burnt

565
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 1: down due to hoverboard fires, they were purchased on Amazon.

566
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: How did the company respond to to this problem? Well,

567
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: in terms of the hoverboard challenge, I mean they stopped

568
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: selling them a little a little bit too late, and

569
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: now they're involved in endless litigation, and in terms of

570
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: the overall problems of fraud and counterfeit and fake reviews,

571
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,439
Speaker 1: they've been a very Amazon and Silicon Valley type. They've

572
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: created systems, they've they've tried to use technology to an

573
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence to weed out fraud, to increase the level

574
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: of the quality of of sellers on the platform, and

575
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 1: with with I think some mixed results. On a related

576
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: issue to that, I recall sending an email to to

577
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: Bezos after I'm trying to remember which Michael Lewis book

578
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: it was that had come out. Maybe it was Flashboys

579
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 1: or The Big Short and I always it had to

580
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,959
Speaker 1: be after the Kindle because there were all these one

581
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:39,360
Speaker 1: star reviews of a Michael Lewis book, because the Kindle

582
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: release was set by the publisher to take place like

583
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: three months or six months later, it was it was

584
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: after the book public It was kind of insane that

585
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 1: these Kindle fan boys were one starring reviews. Since then,

586
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: we've had like a much bigger problem with reviews, fake reviews,

587
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 1: purchase reviews. How is Amazon responding to that? My takeaway,

588
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: I just can no longer rely on reviews. I just

589
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: assume most of them are nonsense. That's true. And as

590
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: a as an author whose sales are are taking place,

591
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 1: uh predominantly, And I was getting to test the I

592
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: just I just saw a I think it was a

593
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: two star review because somebody felt that there were fingerprints

594
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: smudges on the cover. You's like, you gotta be getting

595
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 1: me but doing Yeah, I mean, I think you know.

596
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:38,720
Speaker 1: They they've done a couple of things. They prioritize UM

597
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 1: actual purchases, the reviews from yeah, verified reviews, but they've

598
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:48,279
Speaker 1: also i think lowered the significance of reviews. And when

599
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,200
Speaker 1: when you think back a couple of years ago, and

600
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: this leads into advertising. Um, the search engine was this

601
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 1: taxonomy of useful products UM that a very secretive and

602
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: is on algorithm would order. And one of the big

603
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 1: variables was the number and the quality of reviews that

604
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: a product got. And of course that just opened it

605
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:13,280
Speaker 1: up to third party sellers gaming the system, buying fake reviews,

606
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: generating their own, and you know, and that variable ended

607
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 1: up being less useful. And now it's basically the Amazon

608
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:24,720
Speaker 1: Church results are essentially pay for play people by search

609
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: ads to appear there, and reviews are no longer important.

610
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: The advertising is a little bit of a fail also,

611
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: because you know, I was searching for a lithium battery

612
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: the other day. It's number thirty four fifty and up

613
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: pops during cell and I click it and buy it.

614
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: And it's only after it arrives that I realized this

615
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: isn't this is the you know, three thousand and twenty three.

616
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 1: Why would that show up in a search for a

617
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: very specific and so I've I've kind of learned be

618
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:58,720
Speaker 1: aware of sponsored results, and really it's best to start

619
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: your search off of Amazon. I never approached Amazon shopping

620
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: that way. Now it's look for what you want to

621
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: get and then if Amazon has it, great, But don't

622
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: begin your search on Amazon. I wonder are they trading

623
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 1: off advertising revenues for sales. I told the story of

624
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 1: the evolution of the ad business inside Amazon and the

625
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: decision to move sponsored search results up to the top.

626
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 1: Sponsored listing to the top of search results was a

627
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 1: very specific decision made by days Os, and I think

628
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: he understood how profitable the search business could be inside

629
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: Amazon and simply wanted the cash to go, you know,

630
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,760
Speaker 1: to make his investments in Prime video and satellite internet

631
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 1: access and the other ambitious plans that he has. They

632
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 1: saw that it would lead to a decrease in in

633
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 1: customer satisfaction. I believe that this might even be seen

634
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: as a turning point in Amazon's history. Um He judged

635
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 1: that the impact on customer satisfaction would have to be

636
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: so large as to outweigh the benefit that AMA Amazon

637
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:08,640
Speaker 1: would be getting. I call this the gold mine in

638
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: the back gyard. But I do think there's some cough.

639
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: And I just did a lithium battery search the one

640
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: Barry that you just described, and it's a mess. Yeah,

641
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 1: it's a debacle, absolutely. Yeah. It's all sponsored a private

642
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: label brands, and I have, you know, just absolutely no

643
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: idea here, right. If you don't know exactly what you're

644
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: looking for, the Amazon search is as often as not unhelpful.

645
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:36,680
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about two of the biggest failures um

646
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,839
Speaker 1: and I'm going to use those terms loosely, A new

647
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: one and an old one. The latest debacle h Q two.

648
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: I mean, how tone deaf was that? That was just

649
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:53,240
Speaker 1: such an avoidable self inflicted wounds? How did they blow

650
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:57,240
Speaker 1: that so badly? So it's interesting. I have a chapter

651
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 1: in the book about HQ two and and one I

652
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: think easy answer is that the political environment kind of

653
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 1: drastically changed under them as they as they embark on

654
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: this um on, this on the search, which lasted much

655
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:16,879
Speaker 1: longer than they thought. And it starts with a kind

656
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: of political earthquake in Seattle, the city council turning hospital,

657
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: Amazon being blamed for all sorts of ills, and Bezos

658
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: think looking at Elon with the giga factory in Nevada

659
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:30,800
Speaker 1: and fox Kind in Wisconsin and thinking this process is

660
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: going to underscore who wants us? And in the year

661
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: plus as they do this, Amazon hits the trillion dollars

662
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: in market cap, Bezos becomes the wealthiest person in the world.

663
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: AOC gets elected, the progressive political movement gathers steam and

664
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: a sense, and the tech lash begins. And as they announced, um,

665
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:52,720
Speaker 1: you know New York City, in Washington, d c um,

666
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 1: they you know, they realize that it's it's not just

667
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:57,279
Speaker 1: gonna be expression of who whats us. It's going to

668
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: be a verdict about the role that tech company, me

669
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: and even big companies are playing in our community. So

670
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:05,239
Speaker 1: that's a much different discussion than the one they wanted

671
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,839
Speaker 1: to have. Huh. So, So to two things about that,

672
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:12,799
Speaker 1: I'm gonna push back a little bit. First, the tech

673
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: lash had been ramping up for a good couple of

674
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: years before h Q two. Remember Bernie Sanders almost bat

675
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton to be the nominee. So issues of wealth

676
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,320
Speaker 1: inequality and income inequality and and the halves and the

677
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 1: half nots. I mean, that's been an ongoing discussion for

678
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 1: at least since the Great Financial Crisis. Uh, it's certainly accelerated.

679
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 1: But but the other thing is when you look at

680
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: when they started the search, they were already a giant

681
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:55,800
Speaker 1: and wildly successful company. Um. It just seems and and

682
00:41:56,160 --> 00:42:01,320
Speaker 1: kudos to Scott Galloway at n y U who basically said,

683
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:05,799
Speaker 1: all these things are are affront and the areas that

684
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 1: are gonna win are gonna be where the CEO has

685
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: a home or one to live and and he literally

686
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:13,840
Speaker 1: said it will either be New York or d C.

687
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: And lo and behold it was both. Um. So the

688
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: question is why not why not be small? Are they

689
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,800
Speaker 1: just at a at a certain point you become so wealthy,

690
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: you just out of touch. Why not say Hey, we're

691
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: gonna come in and here's what we're gonna do for

692
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: the community, and we're gonna build a waterfront park, and

693
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: we're gonna help expand um mass transit, and we're gonna

694
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 1: do this, and we're gonna do that. This looks like

695
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: it was just sold so poorly. And I want to

696
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:45,760
Speaker 1: actually agree agree with you that there were there worked

697
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: some quite clear, invisible signs that the political climates and shifted.

698
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: But I think it's a function of how reclusive and

699
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 1: maybe self absorbed by us and other Amazon executives were,

700
00:42:56,760 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 1: so they just kind of failed to see it. And

701
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 1: you know, the fact they you know, they wanted to

702
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 1: be wooed by communities. But I think you're making a

703
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 1: pretty good point, which is that they actually were going

704
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: to be the ones that would have to do the wooing.

705
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 1: And seeing two hundred thirty regions prostrate themselves, sorry, prostrate

706
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:19,240
Speaker 1: themselves in front of Amazon, a big, wealthy technology company,

707
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: was just unseemly, I think exactly exactly. It's amazing. And

708
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:29,919
Speaker 1: then the other failure I have to talk about, which

709
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 1: is kind of shocking, is Blue Origins has just been

710
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 1: a mess from day one. It was preordained to fail.

711
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: How how could you say we're going to set up

712
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 1: a private company to reinvigorate space travel, but we're going

713
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: to do it on the cheap. It's just it's so

714
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: opposite of the Amazon approach. What was he thinking? Yeah, well,

715
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: this is um he sets up Blue Origin in two thousand.

716
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 1: He is a relative popper by by today's standards in

717
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: terms of his his wealth and this whole saying in

718
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:07,399
Speaker 1: the space business, Um that the quickest way to become

719
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: a millionaire is the start off as a billionaire. So

720
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: I think he went into it knowing that building rockets

721
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 1: is not for the faint of heart, and so he

722
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: righte he sets out to constrain the investment, to keep

723
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 1: the headcount small. He's going to privately fund it, and

724
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 1: he's going to think long term, all the sort of

725
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:26,919
Speaker 1: Bezos hallmarks. And what happens is Elon Musk comes in

726
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 1: and Um literally you know, starts going quickly raising money

727
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: from venture capitalists, UM, funding space X with government contracts,

728
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 1: and and Bezos's approach seems you know, kind of meager

729
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: and tame. In response, then Bezos changes gears, starts selling

730
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 1: a billion dollars worth of Amazon stock every year to

731
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:50,879
Speaker 1: fund it, and sees a lot of dysfunction at the company. Right, Yeah,

732
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 1: that this function was ongoing. There's a data point you

733
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 1: mentioned the book that was mind blowing. Elon Musk's SpaceX

734
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 1: wins a contract for FO forty million dollars, but like

735
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: so many Defense Department and government contracts, there are some

736
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: price over rides and he ends up, according to an

737
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: inspector general, getting paid seven point seven billion dollars went

738
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,040
Speaker 1: to space X, which which makes every time he complains

739
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: kind of laughing. Right. I think that's more that that first,

740
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 1: that was the first installment of a contract than that

741
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: then kind of continued to evolve UM and that Bezos

742
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: was looking at back go and you know, we should

743
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: have we should have been on this UM. He he

744
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 1: was ultimately I think jealous, probably a strange position for

745
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos to be in that that musque was getting

746
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: paid to play. You know, they have similar dreams in

747
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: space UM. And here the government is funding SpaceX and

748
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: its ambitions and helping Elon scale the company, and and

749
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 1: Bezos is still shelling out personally for Blue Origins Amazing

750
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:02,239
Speaker 1: and our final discussion on failure UM. They had an

751
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:07,959
Speaker 1: internal process of reviewing employees called stacked ranking that led

752
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:12,239
Speaker 1: to what you described as a quote informal cruelty unquote

753
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 1: that is definitional for the company's corporate culture. Explain what

754
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:21,800
Speaker 1: that was about and why they ultimately had to change

755
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:26,760
Speaker 1: it right and and different companies have experimented with different

756
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 1: versions of this. Bezos early on never wanted Amazon to

757
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: become a country club, a place where employees got comfortable.

758
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 1: He was particularly worried in the fulfillment center is that

759
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:41,439
Speaker 1: if people stuck around for too long, they could be

760
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: susceptible to organizing efforts from unions. And the review process

761
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 1: really encouraged managers to you know, to to evaluate and

762
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: then and then um dismissed the lowest performers. And this

763
00:46:56,040 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: is a management practice that has wreak havoc everywhere Microsoft, off,

764
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: the General Electric etcetera. Um, there were there was one

765
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:08,280
Speaker 1: element that led to I think these sort of negative

766
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 1: evaluations of Amazon, Amazon's culture. That was a theme in

767
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: the Everything Store. It was obviously there was that high

768
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: profile New York Times article into those of jifteen and yes,

769
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:22,400
Speaker 1: I think after the Times article they re evaluated it.

770
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:25,600
Speaker 1: I still get reports periodically that a form of it

771
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:28,320
Speaker 1: still exists. And the Amazon so big of a company

772
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 1: right now, there are lots of different pockets of of

773
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: employee you know, experiences and reviews. Um, but I think

774
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: you know, this is part of the basis is philosophy.

775
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 1: He he wants people to come to Amazon, to have

776
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 1: the most productive years of their career, to move at

777
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 1: breakneck speed, and when they when they slow down, to

778
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: move on, he doesn't mind. He doesn't mind that even

779
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 1: the compensation systems are sort of geared towards avoiding people

780
00:47:56,560 --> 00:48:01,360
Speaker 1: becoming extraordinarily so extraordinarily wealthy that they stopped being motivated.

781
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: And yeah, it is interpreted as a kind of informal

782
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: cruelty among some people. And that's why, um, disgruntled former

783
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: Amazon employees are not a rare species, to say the least.

784
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about some really fascinating things

785
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:23,240
Speaker 1: with Bezos, including one of my favorite memes circulating Twitter

786
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: is the photo of him in sort of bookish looking

787
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 1: with glasses. And then there's a photo from I think

788
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 1: it was sun Valley where he's kind of jacked in

789
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:41,280
Speaker 1: a you know, vest and shirt, strolling confidently towards the viewer,

790
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:44,840
Speaker 1: and it was Amazon, Amazon Prime, and that was everywhere

791
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:49,399
Speaker 1: for a while. Tell us about the transformation of Bezos

792
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:53,800
Speaker 1: from a sort of you know Wall Street geek into

793
00:48:54,200 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 1: uh an overlord. Right, Well, the physical transformation, so this

794
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 1: is only the most obvious part of it, right The

795
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: guy has been working out and getting in shape, and

796
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 1: in the first book I ascribed that from a former

797
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: friend to his interest in in um in one day

798
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:15,799
Speaker 1: going to space until he's trying to safe fit. Now

799
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,880
Speaker 1: I think it's more. I suspect it's more, you know,

800
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 1: the billionaire fixation with longevity and and and health. But

801
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 1: again that that's only part of it. He his eyes

802
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 1: have opened up to a larger world beyond Amazon, and

803
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: and that's me a his ownership of The Washington Post

804
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 1: and participation in in Washington, d C. Society, UM Space Company,

805
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 1: Hollywood right throwing parties. He simply seems to enjoy the lifestyle,

806
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:49,359
Speaker 1: the extravagance that comes with his position, much more than

807
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,719
Speaker 1: he ever did. And and the greatest symbol of this,

808
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 1: I never thought Jeff Bezos circa even two thousand and

809
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,919
Speaker 1: ten would be a yacht guy, you know, someone who's

810
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,760
Speaker 1: spending time on big books. And I was a report

811
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 1: in the book. He's building this massive three three mass

812
00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 1: math with a with its own support yacht with it

813
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:13,319
Speaker 1: was the right room for he and I think part

814
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:17,319
Speaker 1: of that the the influence of Laurence Sanchez, his partner, um,

815
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: and part of it is simply him enjoying the world

816
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:24,319
Speaker 1: stage that is human and the robot, the machine that

817
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 1: created Amazon. You know, is is susceptible too. I guess

818
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: some of these human impulses. Yes, so so you we

819
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 1: we already talked. Mackenzie Scott, his former wife, gave The

820
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 1: Everything Store a one star review. But but her and

821
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 1: and Bezos' new girlfriend, Sanchez could not possibly be more different.

822
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 1: She's very social and outgoing. Mackenzie Scott is a little

823
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: bit more of an introvert and and a homebody. How

824
00:50:56,200 --> 00:51:00,840
Speaker 1: much of the divorce comes from him wanting to step

825
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: out a bit and you know, literally the wife wanting

826
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: a quiet night at home. What's the genesis of this?

827
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,880
Speaker 1: Because there wasn't a whole lot about the divorce um

828
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:17,360
Speaker 1: other than to say it was already sort of happening

829
00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 1: before Sanchez ever showed up on the scene. I mean, Barry,

830
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: this the easiest answers that we have no idea, right,

831
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: I mean, who really knows what happens in the private

832
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 1: confines of that marriage. Other than to observe what what

833
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 1: you've just said, which is Mackenzie Scott is fiercely private.

834
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 1: I think I think she's done one interview um around

835
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: the publication of one of her novels. Um. She she

836
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 1: speaks very carefully in the in the few medium posts

837
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 1: that she's written about her philanthropic contributions. And she didn't

838
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:53,760
Speaker 1: seem to enjoy as much going to the awards shows

839
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:58,239
Speaker 1: or to the fashion galas um as as Jeff Bethos did.

840
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're they're they're interest for public attention were diverging. Um,

841
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,200
Speaker 1: that's certainly true. And in Lauren Santis, Bezos has found

842
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: someone who's extremely comfortable moving in those circles. Um. And

843
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:16,239
Speaker 1: yet who you know, I don't think it's it's ever

844
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 1: possible to know, Um, you know what what has really

845
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 1: you know, what really happens in a marriage? Huh? To

846
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:25,239
Speaker 1: say the least, let's talk a little bit. You mentioned

847
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: the Washington Post Bezos really helped to drive a huge

848
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: turnaround at the Post, and I was kind of surprised

849
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 1: to read that the tagline democracy dies in darkness? Was

850
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: that really a Bezos line? Well, if you if you

851
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 1: remember Barry, that was a line in a speech um

852
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 1: that Bob Woodward had given crediting of pre Watergate era judge,

853
00:52:54,840 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: and then Bezos had heard that, and when he asked

854
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:01,360
Speaker 1: Marty Baron and others is the Washington Post to go

855
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 1: find a slogan for the paper, he suggested that it

856
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 1: should do something like democracy Dies in Darkness. And then

857
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:12,240
Speaker 1: they spent about a year and probably you know, thousands

858
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 1: of hundreds of thousands of dollars, paying branding firms and

859
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:18,080
Speaker 1: coming up with ideas and firing them, and they basically

860
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 1: got back to Democracy Dies in Darkness, which originally they

861
00:53:21,640 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 1: had thought was kind of too dreary, uh, and then

862
00:53:24,719 --> 00:53:27,720
Speaker 1: ended up being perfect for the age of Donald Trump.

863
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:31,239
Speaker 1: So yes, it was sort of bezos inspiration but a

864
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:34,279
Speaker 1: little a little bit of well hard to call, you know,

865
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 1: that era luck, But it certainly was for the Post, right,

866
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:41,799
Speaker 1: because even though Bezos did drive a remarkable turner on there,

867
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 1: they certainly did, they were fortunate by the revival of

868
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 1: interest and political news had accompanied the Trump years. So

869
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:52,239
Speaker 1: it's interesting because as you read the book, it's as

870
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 1: much about Amazon the company as it is about Bezos,

871
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:01,879
Speaker 1: like a bio of him. Was the intention or did

872
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,919
Speaker 1: it just become clear you can't write about one without

873
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:08,800
Speaker 1: writing about the other. I think in both books I

874
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 1: thought of them as um as. Yes, as both um.

875
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 1: I you know, since I'm working with limited access to Bezos. Um,

876
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: they're predominantly about the companies. But just is the main character, right,

877
00:54:23,239 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: And you can't when you peel back the layers of

878
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:29,959
Speaker 1: the onion on most major inventions at Amazon and most

879
00:54:30,239 --> 00:54:33,880
Speaker 1: big strategic moves, you find you get to Jeff Bezos

880
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:37,359
Speaker 1: and and a decision that he made. And this book

881
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 1: Amazon Abound is about transformation. It's it's the transformation of

882
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:44,880
Speaker 1: this company into this monolith that is dominating all of

883
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: our life now and and our economic reality. And then

884
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 1: the accompanying transformation of Bezos right into the richest man

885
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:54,840
Speaker 1: in the world, into into this figure on the public stage,

886
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: the evolution of a tech geek into kind of a

887
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,880
Speaker 1: business superhero. And yeah, they're really intertwined. I think. I

888
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:04,840
Speaker 1: think in some ways they function as biographies for the

889
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:07,800
Speaker 1: company and for the man. So there's a quote of

890
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 1: his in the book quote you can invent your way

891
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:15,120
Speaker 1: out of any box unquote, which kind of raises the question,

892
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:18,279
Speaker 1: how does he see himself? Is he an inventor, Is

893
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: he a business founder? Is he a CEO and a leader? What?

894
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: What is his self identified role? Yeah, that one's easy

895
00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: to answer because he keeps insisting and he did so

896
00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:34,240
Speaker 1: again in his latest shareholder letter that he's an inventor.

897
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: That is how he wants to be seen. And it's

898
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 1: funny because I have a colleague at Bloomberg and we

899
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:43,960
Speaker 1: were talking about that and she said, you know, this

900
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:46,919
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of Taylor Swift, who wants

901
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:49,399
Speaker 1: to be seen as a songwriter, but the world kind

902
00:55:49,440 --> 00:55:51,440
Speaker 1: of sees her, you know, more as a singer and

903
00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 1: as a performer. I think that's true with Bezos too.

904
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 1: He wants to be seen as an inventor, but you know,

905
00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 1: by his admire as he will largely be seen I

906
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 1: think as an operator and an entrepreneur, a creator of

907
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:09,920
Speaker 1: amazing business value, and by his critics as a monopolist. Right,

908
00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 1: and the verdict is still out on this, but as

909
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:16,719
Speaker 1: a as an aggregator of extraordinarily extraordinarily wealth and and

910
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:20,359
Speaker 1: not yet really as a philanthropist whose contribution back has

911
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:25,359
Speaker 1: been commensurate with with his um you know, accomplishment. So yes,

912
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:27,440
Speaker 1: he wants to be seen as an inventor, and that

913
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 1: that might be uh, the jury is out on that

914
00:56:30,239 --> 00:56:33,759
Speaker 1: a little bit. So when he looks at all of

915
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:38,760
Speaker 1: those accomplishments, what does he see as his lasting legacy?

916
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: How does he want to be remembered? With the caveat

917
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,160
Speaker 1: that he's still a relatively young man, and is what

918
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: early fifties, Well, let's see, it's probably it's probably mid

919
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:53,080
Speaker 1: the late fifties, right, yeah, mid fifties right now. I

920
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: think he wants to be seen as an inventor. I

921
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:58,080
Speaker 1: think that he wants to be seen. The last investor

922
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 1: letter is really this interest thing, an impassioned defense of

923
00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: Amazon as a contributor, as a as a generator of value,

924
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:10,840
Speaker 1: and he goes one by one talking about the the

925
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 1: gross merchandise value generated by third party sellers, the salaries

926
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:22,760
Speaker 1: of the third party workers, how much Amazon shareholders have benefited, um.

927
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: And he's really trying to reframe the debate, I think,

928
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: around his own wealth and Amazon's own power, and to

929
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 1: shed lights on how much value Amazon is creative. So

930
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:34,400
Speaker 1: I think he wants to be seen and he wants

931
00:57:34,400 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 1: Amazon's legacy to be one that has contributed to the

932
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:40,280
Speaker 1: economy and positive ways, and and and the reason why

933
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 1: he's arguing that so precipitously is because the prevailing sentiment

934
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 1: right now at least is that you know, billionaires are

935
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:53,360
Speaker 1: bad and in some corners of society, of course, um

936
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:57,440
Speaker 1: that they represent something untoward in the distribution of wealth

937
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: in our society and the widening income gap, and that

938
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:04,240
Speaker 1: big tech companies have come to dominate the economy and

939
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 1: the snuff out opportunity for smaller businesses. And look, I

940
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 1: mean I try to I try to get into that

941
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:12,640
Speaker 1: debate in the book. I think that's a little bit

942
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:15,280
Speaker 1: of a harsh view. Amazon has made some real positive

943
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:19,040
Speaker 1: contributions and and basis is I think only beginning to

944
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 1: grapple with the fact that his legacy right now is

945
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:26,200
Speaker 1: very much contested and he'll have to probably spend the

946
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: next couple of years, you know, turning turning that around

947
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 1: and making significant contributions and changing people's mind. You have

948
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:35,919
Speaker 1: to say the least, I'm trying to remember where which

949
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:39,280
Speaker 1: document of there's where they might have been. In defense

950
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:43,600
Speaker 1: of something that Bernie sanders Um had said, he points out,

951
00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:46,960
Speaker 1: we employ over a million people, with a second biggest

952
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:50,680
Speaker 1: job creator in the country which actually is as good

953
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: a time as any to talk about what he did

954
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:58,920
Speaker 1: with the fifteen dollar an hour um increase. This this

955
00:58:59,200 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 1: was just a brilliant jiu jitsu in response to I

956
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:10,720
Speaker 1: think Bernie Sanders haranguing uh Bezos. He figured out pretty quickly, Hey,

957
00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:14,120
Speaker 1: this is paying more money is a giant competitive advantage

958
00:59:14,160 --> 00:59:18,240
Speaker 1: to us. Tell us about how he raised the minimum

959
00:59:18,280 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 1: wage at at Amazon to fifteen right, and we should

960
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:25,720
Speaker 1: we should note I mean a lot of a lot

961
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:29,440
Speaker 1: of these moves by Amazon, as welcome as they are,

962
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 1: our our reaction reactions, and the fight for fifteen dollars

963
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:38,520
Speaker 1: an hour, it's something that starts ten years ago among

964
00:59:38,720 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: among big companies and fast food chains. UM employee strikes

965
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:47,280
Speaker 1: lots of pressure, and Amazon is growing by leaps and

966
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,400
Speaker 1: bounds over the past few years, becoming a more and

967
00:59:50,520 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 1: more prominent employer. The lens of public scrutiny is on

968
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 1: their relationship with their employees, and at a certain point,

969
00:59:57,760 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 1: I think they realized that they're going to have to

970
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:01,560
Speaker 1: get a head of it, and and they do have

971
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:03,560
Speaker 1: the resources to get ahead of it in a way

972
01:00:03,640 --> 01:00:07,120
Speaker 1: that perhaps some of its competition UM Walmart and the

973
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 1: like do not, and so they they raise their their wage.

974
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:14,680
Speaker 1: And sorry, one other thing baries that as they're hiring

975
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 1: more and more people, um, you know, hundreds of thousands

976
01:00:17,640 --> 01:00:19,919
Speaker 1: of people in their for filming centers at a time

977
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:23,640
Speaker 1: of economic prosperity and tightness in the labor market, I

978
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 1: think they realized they need to sweeten the pot for

979
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 1: for workers to even just fill those for filming centers,

980
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:32,400
Speaker 1: particularly during the holidays. And so fifteen dollars an hour.

981
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 1: It's a recruiting mechanism. It's a strategic weapon to to

982
01:00:36,520 --> 01:00:40,480
Speaker 1: bludgeon their competitors over the head who can't match the rate.

983
01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:42,800
Speaker 1: And then it's a little bit of a of a

984
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 1: defense um to the for the activists and the politicians

985
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:51,040
Speaker 1: like Bernie Sanders who are criticizing Amazon's relationship with their employees. Yeah,

986
01:00:51,120 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 1: he went away for a little while. Eventually he started

987
01:00:53,640 --> 01:00:57,600
Speaker 1: coming back at Bezos, but for a while he was

988
01:00:57,680 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: pretty satisfied. Let's let's talk about on another jiu jitsu

989
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: that was so brilliantly played. Um. Laurence Sanchez's brother got

990
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:12,640
Speaker 1: access to a variety of texts and then went about

991
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 1: selling them to the National Enquirer. He claimed that he

992
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:21,439
Speaker 1: had a nude selfie of quote unquote below the belt

993
01:01:21,520 --> 01:01:25,720
Speaker 1: selfie that turned out not to be so true, and

994
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 1: Bezos just completely up ended what looked like being trapped

995
01:01:32,520 --> 01:01:35,520
Speaker 1: in a box. Tell us a little bit about that

996
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:41,200
Speaker 1: incredible escaping act. Yeah, right, this is this is one

997
01:01:41,200 --> 01:01:43,600
Speaker 1: of those episodes that I couldn't quite believe I was

998
01:01:43,760 --> 01:01:46,840
Speaker 1: I was going to be writing about. Um, Bezos has

999
01:01:46,920 --> 01:01:50,560
Speaker 1: tangled with the National Enquirer. You mentioned Laurence Snchez, his

1000
01:01:50,640 --> 01:01:56,360
Speaker 1: brother delivering um, delivering those text messages to the paper. Um.

1001
01:01:56,520 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: He you know, he thought he was trying well, the

1002
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 1: cup was sort of conducting their relationship out in the open,

1003
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:06,560
Speaker 1: and you know, for whatever reason, he decided that he

1004
01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:09,040
Speaker 1: wanted to try to get ahead of it. He was

1005
01:02:09,120 --> 01:02:12,360
Speaker 1: also he was also paid quite well by the Inquirer

1006
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 1: for the information. And UM, it's it's almost impossible to

1007
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:23,240
Speaker 1: believe Bezos. Um. Well, it's a really complicated saga. UM.

1008
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:24,840
Speaker 1: I don't know how far you want me to go back.

1009
01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:28,960
Speaker 1: But the the Inquirer was very susceptible to accusations that

1010
01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:32,680
Speaker 1: they had political motives, and Bezos and his representatives had

1011
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:35,000
Speaker 1: had been floating the possibility that they were doing the

1012
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:38,480
Speaker 1: work for the Trump administration to embarrass Bezos as an

1013
01:02:38,480 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: owner of the Washington Post, and in the negotiations, um,

1014
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:48,800
Speaker 1: the Inquirer essentially was threatening Bezos with the release of

1015
01:02:48,880 --> 01:02:52,200
Speaker 1: all of this, these these embarrassing photos, saying you have

1016
01:02:52,320 --> 01:02:55,120
Speaker 1: to stop accusing us of having political motives. It wasn't

1017
01:02:55,320 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 1: politically motivated at all, simply a good story. And then

1018
01:02:58,320 --> 01:03:01,640
Speaker 1: Bezos turns around and publishes told his emails um and

1019
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:04,680
Speaker 1: suggest that there were political motives and suggests that studies

1020
01:03:04,720 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 1: were involved, and then sympathies swing to his side. It

1021
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:11,320
Speaker 1: was this brilliant move. If people remember that episode at all,

1022
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:14,920
Speaker 1: they probably think Bezos did the right thing. And as

1023
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:18,000
Speaker 1: I untangled it, I sort of at least I concluded

1024
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:21,960
Speaker 1: that there weren't political motivations, so the Staudies weren't involved.

1025
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:24,800
Speaker 1: They may have hacked Beazos' phone. We kind of don't know,

1026
01:03:25,240 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 1: but it was. It was simply a sort of brilliant

1027
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:32,760
Speaker 1: pr master master stroke, and they edited the Inquirer ended

1028
01:03:32,840 --> 01:03:36,360
Speaker 1: up getting fired. Um, you know, and I think we

1029
01:03:36,560 --> 01:03:40,040
Speaker 1: we That was my excerpt in Bloomberg Business Week, and

1030
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:42,840
Speaker 1: the cover line was Bezos wins again. And of course

1031
01:03:42,920 --> 01:03:45,720
Speaker 1: because he did right and this is one where by

1032
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:48,080
Speaker 1: all measures, he should have been embarrassed, and he kind

1033
01:03:48,120 --> 01:03:50,840
Speaker 1: of came out on top the New York Post with

1034
01:03:51,000 --> 01:03:58,000
Speaker 1: another memorable headline, Bezos exposes Pecker, referring to David Pecker

1035
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 1: was the editor of the UM Inquirer and had already

1036
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:08,760
Speaker 1: been under pressure because of the catching killed deals they

1037
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:13,360
Speaker 1: had done to protect Donald Trump UM and were some

1038
01:04:13,680 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 1: I don't remember what the problem was. I guess that's

1039
01:04:15,640 --> 01:04:20,280
Speaker 1: a violation of campaign finance laws. And he was sort

1040
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:23,360
Speaker 1: of in limbo with the Southern District. Is that what

1041
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:27,440
Speaker 1: took place there? Yeah, they had a non prosecution agreement

1042
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:31,080
Speaker 1: with the Southern District of New York that required am I,

1043
01:04:31,400 --> 01:04:34,880
Speaker 1: the company that operated the National Inquirer, to to to

1044
01:04:35,040 --> 01:04:37,360
Speaker 1: be a good citizen, to not break the law, to

1045
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:40,640
Speaker 1: play by the rules. And so when the Washington Post

1046
01:04:40,720 --> 01:04:45,840
Speaker 1: and Gavin de Becker Bezoss representative started insinuating that the

1047
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:48,600
Speaker 1: Inquirer was doing the work of the Trump administration to

1048
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:52,440
Speaker 1: embarrass Jeff Bezos, UM, you know that was that was

1049
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 1: sensitive for for am I, and Pecker wanted wanted the

1050
01:04:56,840 --> 01:04:59,120
Speaker 1: Dylan Howard, the under the Inquiry to kind of settle

1051
01:04:59,440 --> 01:05:03,840
Speaker 1: settle settled the matter. That's just an incredible story. And

1052
01:05:04,040 --> 01:05:07,280
Speaker 1: I guess the the lesson is, if you're in the

1053
01:05:07,400 --> 01:05:10,600
Speaker 1: business of challenging wealthiest people in the world with lots

1054
01:05:10,680 --> 01:05:13,880
Speaker 1: of resources, you probably don't want to do it while

1055
01:05:13,920 --> 01:05:17,880
Speaker 1: you're on double secret probation is probably a bit. There's

1056
01:05:17,880 --> 01:05:19,880
Speaker 1: a line from the Wire that I love in this

1057
01:05:20,080 --> 01:05:22,560
Speaker 1: in this context, if you come at the King, you

1058
01:05:22,680 --> 01:05:26,680
Speaker 1: better not miss And they came at the King and

1059
01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:30,280
Speaker 1: they missed. Before we get to our favorite questions, I

1060
01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:33,600
Speaker 1: have to ask you some recent news that came out

1061
01:05:34,040 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 1: after the book was published. What do you make of

1062
01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:42,640
Speaker 1: this eight point four billion dollar purchase of MGM. Is

1063
01:05:43,120 --> 01:05:48,560
Speaker 1: this about Amazon Prime or is this about Bezos getting

1064
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:53,000
Speaker 1: to hang with Hollywood Royalty. Well, you can hang with

1065
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: Hollywood Royalty without MGM. It's about intellectual property. It's about

1066
01:05:57,760 --> 01:06:02,280
Speaker 1: the vault of franchisees, the deep. The MGM has James Bond,

1067
01:06:02,440 --> 01:06:07,520
Speaker 1: the Rocky Series, Legally Blonde, et cetera, RoboCop um. Amazon

1068
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:11,520
Speaker 1: is facing the likes of Disney Plus and an Apple.

1069
01:06:12,320 --> 01:06:16,880
Speaker 1: Um you know, not just Netflix, Paramount, Peacock Network and

1070
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:20,760
Speaker 1: and franchises are are going to be a big differentiator.

1071
01:06:21,320 --> 01:06:24,760
Speaker 1: UM In addition, we talked about the advertising business and

1072
01:06:24,880 --> 01:06:28,440
Speaker 1: with MGM, Amazon gets this vault of this catalog of

1073
01:06:29,560 --> 01:06:33,000
Speaker 1: archival programming. They can funnel all that into Prime video

1074
01:06:33,160 --> 01:06:36,320
Speaker 1: and into another streaming service I m DBTV, which is

1075
01:06:36,600 --> 01:06:39,920
Speaker 1: it's free to use and it's supported by advertising, and

1076
01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:43,160
Speaker 1: and this is like, this is these are table stakes

1077
01:06:43,200 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 1: now in the new streaming wards being able to mint

1078
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:51,040
Speaker 1: franchises and have very deep catalogs of libraries of archival programming.

1079
01:06:51,760 --> 01:06:54,600
Speaker 1: Really interesting. All right, for our last regular question, I'm

1080
01:06:54,640 --> 01:06:59,200
Speaker 1: just gonna throw a curveball at you and say congratulations

1081
01:06:59,720 --> 01:07:05,240
Speaker 1: on winning the Amazon Whole Food sweep steaks. Okay, I

1082
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:10,840
Speaker 1: love this story. Yeah, thank you Berry. Um, I is

1083
01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:14,440
Speaker 1: that correct? Yes, I'm working on this book and I

1084
01:07:14,520 --> 01:07:17,520
Speaker 1: got a call telling me that I won a Whole

1085
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:19,960
Speaker 1: Food sweep stakes and I had never entered any but

1086
01:07:20,080 --> 01:07:22,840
Speaker 1: apparently if you use your Amazon credit cards and a

1087
01:07:22,880 --> 01:07:25,760
Speaker 1: Whole Foods, who got entered in? And what are the

1088
01:07:25,880 --> 01:07:28,200
Speaker 1: chances I won? And I thought it was a fraud.

1089
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:32,840
Speaker 1: It sounds like a telemarketing scam totally. And I and

1090
01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:35,200
Speaker 1: I think, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna look into this

1091
01:07:35,360 --> 01:07:38,680
Speaker 1: because somebody's abusing you know, the Amazon name, and I

1092
01:07:38,800 --> 01:07:41,840
Speaker 1: find out that it's real, and of course I didn't,

1093
01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:45,920
Speaker 1: I didn't accept it. But it was just so peculiar.

1094
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:47,880
Speaker 1: I mean, what what are the what are the chances

1095
01:07:48,080 --> 01:07:50,720
Speaker 1: I could be eating you know, free and whole foods now,

1096
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:54,880
Speaker 1: But sadly my journalistic obligations prevented me from accepting it.

1097
01:07:56,200 --> 01:07:58,960
Speaker 1: That's pretty hilarious. All right, Let's jump to our favorite

1098
01:07:59,040 --> 01:08:03,040
Speaker 1: questions that we ask all of our guests. And let's

1099
01:08:03,120 --> 01:08:05,840
Speaker 1: start with and I asked this to everybody, not just

1100
01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:08,560
Speaker 1: to you. What are you streaming these days? Give us

1101
01:08:08,600 --> 01:08:14,520
Speaker 1: your favorite Netflix and Amazon Prime shows? Interesting? Let's see, Um,

1102
01:08:15,720 --> 01:08:19,919
Speaker 1: we just started Halston this is the you and McGregor

1103
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:24,720
Speaker 1: fashion thing on Netflix. We're only one episode in my

1104
01:08:25,120 --> 01:08:30,719
Speaker 1: I'll reserve judgments on that. Um. The Michael Douglas series

1105
01:08:30,840 --> 01:08:35,360
Speaker 1: Comisky Method, so they just did season three. I've loved

1106
01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:38,840
Speaker 1: that show. The opening of the first episode at the

1107
01:08:38,960 --> 01:08:46,080
Speaker 1: funeral is just totally hilarious. Um, and I haven't been

1108
01:08:46,120 --> 01:08:48,280
Speaker 1: watching a lot of TV. So those are the two

1109
01:08:48,800 --> 01:08:52,960
Speaker 1: right now. UM. I tried, I have I have young daughters,

1110
01:08:53,400 --> 01:08:56,760
Speaker 1: teenage daughters. I tried to introduce one to a classic film,

1111
01:08:57,040 --> 01:09:02,080
Speaker 1: rain Man over the weekend the great Dustin Hoffman films,

1112
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:06,439
Speaker 1: and she wanted to watching halfway halfway through. UM, so

1113
01:09:06,680 --> 01:09:11,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe maybe you know, it's not it's

1114
01:09:11,240 --> 01:09:15,320
Speaker 1: not as moving for for the younger generation. My experience

1115
01:09:15,479 --> 01:09:20,880
Speaker 1: is that the younger generation can't enjoy the pacing which

1116
01:09:20,960 --> 01:09:23,360
Speaker 1: is so much slower. I mean, unless you go to

1117
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:26,439
Speaker 1: something like the front page or bringing up baby. The

1118
01:09:27,000 --> 01:09:31,360
Speaker 1: pacing of movies from the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties are

1119
01:09:31,560 --> 01:09:35,559
Speaker 1: just so much slower than you know, how how rapid

1120
01:09:35,760 --> 01:09:39,720
Speaker 1: the jokes come and how fast explosions come. Today it's

1121
01:09:39,760 --> 01:09:43,000
Speaker 1: a different era and and they don't have the tolerance

1122
01:09:43,040 --> 01:09:46,840
Speaker 1: for that. I think that might be true, and in

1123
01:09:46,920 --> 01:09:50,439
Speaker 1: the exactly the same way as I rejected the movies

1124
01:09:50,479 --> 01:09:55,320
Speaker 1: of my parents generation. I'm now and there's receiving rooms. Yeah, no,

1125
01:09:55,520 --> 01:09:58,120
Speaker 1: it's it's everything is accelerating. Let's let's talk a little

1126
01:09:58,160 --> 01:10:01,360
Speaker 1: bit about your career and ment yours who helped guide

1127
01:10:01,840 --> 01:10:06,560
Speaker 1: and shape your career? Well? Um, I think probably the

1128
01:10:06,600 --> 01:10:10,800
Speaker 1: most influential with Stephen Levy, um, technology writer at at

1129
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:15,320
Speaker 1: Newsweek Magazine. UM. He has written great books about Apple

1130
01:10:15,479 --> 01:10:17,960
Speaker 1: and Facebook and Google. And seeing him work and the

1131
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:21,760
Speaker 1: way he writes was always very inspirational to me. Um

1132
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:26,120
Speaker 1: George Hackett was an editor of mine at Newsweek magazine.

1133
01:10:26,280 --> 01:10:28,519
Speaker 1: He was he was quite influential and just a great,

1134
01:10:28,760 --> 01:10:32,400
Speaker 1: great editor. And then um at Josh Turangle, the former

1135
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:34,760
Speaker 1: editor of Business Week who brought me over from from

1136
01:10:34,760 --> 01:10:37,759
Speaker 1: the New York Times, and the way he managed people

1137
01:10:37,960 --> 01:10:41,559
Speaker 1: and his story sensibility, the way he really refreshed business Week.

1138
01:10:41,640 --> 01:10:46,080
Speaker 1: When Bloomberg bought it was was wonderful to watch. What

1139
01:10:46,200 --> 01:10:48,200
Speaker 1: are some of your favorite books and and what are

1140
01:10:48,240 --> 01:10:55,720
Speaker 1: you reading right now? Let's see, I'm reading Cast, the

1141
01:10:55,760 --> 01:11:00,720
Speaker 1: wonderful book by Isabel Wilkerson just about um, you know,

1142
01:11:01,040 --> 01:11:04,880
Speaker 1: how we view racial and income divisions in the in

1143
01:11:04,960 --> 01:11:08,240
Speaker 1: the United States. That's that's been really eye opening. I

1144
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:11,839
Speaker 1: feel like my reading has been eclipsed by self promotion

1145
01:11:11,960 --> 01:11:14,960
Speaker 1: and book promotion over the past a few weeks. So

1146
01:11:15,360 --> 01:11:17,960
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm really looking forward to this summer

1147
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:20,040
Speaker 1: when I get to maybe read some of the other

1148
01:11:20,120 --> 01:11:22,280
Speaker 1: excellent books that have that have come out this year.

1149
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:25,800
Speaker 1: I read the novel Clara and the Sun by A.

1150
01:11:25,960 --> 01:11:30,120
Speaker 1: Kazoo Is Shiguru, which um you know who wrote Remains

1151
01:11:30,160 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 1: of the Day is just such a wonderful author. And

1152
01:11:33,400 --> 01:11:36,679
Speaker 1: this book is about it's a sort of science fiction

1153
01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:40,000
Speaker 1: future where people can take home home robots, and it

1154
01:11:40,160 --> 01:11:42,920
Speaker 1: is it is such a moving novel. I actually read

1155
01:11:43,000 --> 01:11:45,560
Speaker 1: it and then immediately reread it, And so that is

1156
01:11:45,840 --> 01:11:49,240
Speaker 1: a book I heartily recommend. What sort of advice would

1157
01:11:49,280 --> 01:11:52,479
Speaker 1: you give to a recent college grad who was thinking

1158
01:11:52,560 --> 01:11:57,040
Speaker 1: about a career in either investment finance or or journalism

1159
01:11:57,560 --> 01:12:01,519
Speaker 1: or both? Right, well, I would have absolutely no advice

1160
01:12:01,600 --> 01:12:05,240
Speaker 1: on the investment finance side of things, very that that

1161
01:12:05,439 --> 01:12:09,520
Speaker 1: might be more your per view than mine. Um on journalism,

1162
01:12:09,960 --> 01:12:13,720
Speaker 1: after maybe waving my hands, uh, you know, at them

1163
01:12:13,800 --> 01:12:18,200
Speaker 1: to get them to reconsider if they were really determined,

1164
01:12:19,120 --> 01:12:22,559
Speaker 1: I would um, I would. I would encourage young journalists

1165
01:12:22,560 --> 01:12:25,200
Speaker 1: to kind of find their lean, you know, find something

1166
01:12:25,240 --> 01:12:28,599
Speaker 1: that they're passionate about and interested in, to go deep

1167
01:12:28,680 --> 01:12:32,600
Speaker 1: on um and to sort of master the expertise in

1168
01:12:33,160 --> 01:12:36,559
Speaker 1: and then to just be persistent. This business is all

1169
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:40,320
Speaker 1: about persistence and being there after everyone else has left,

1170
01:12:40,720 --> 01:12:43,360
Speaker 1: and going a little deeper and asking that last question

1171
01:12:43,760 --> 01:12:47,439
Speaker 1: and digging into another box of files when you feel

1172
01:12:47,479 --> 01:12:50,679
Speaker 1: like you're exhausted and want to drop. And that's that's

1173
01:12:50,720 --> 01:12:53,080
Speaker 1: the key to this business. Right, it's not rocket science.

1174
01:12:53,560 --> 01:12:55,800
Speaker 1: We don't we don't need PhDs to do it. But

1175
01:12:55,960 --> 01:13:02,160
Speaker 1: often it's just sheer curiosity and persistence and absorption and obsession, right.

1176
01:13:02,320 --> 01:13:06,639
Speaker 1: I mean I have become over the past decade sort

1177
01:13:06,680 --> 01:13:10,960
Speaker 1: of obsessed with understanding how Amazon works and what drives

1178
01:13:11,000 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos, um, you know, and what's good about it,

1179
01:13:14,520 --> 01:13:16,439
Speaker 1: what's bad about it? And I think you need that

1180
01:13:16,560 --> 01:13:20,200
Speaker 1: kind of absorption, of an obsession of curiosity to succeed

1181
01:13:20,280 --> 01:13:23,800
Speaker 1: as a journalist today. And our final question, what do

1182
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:26,960
Speaker 1: you know about the world of journalism today? You wish

1183
01:13:27,040 --> 01:13:31,080
Speaker 1: you knew when you were first getting started twenty plus

1184
01:13:31,240 --> 01:13:35,960
Speaker 1: years ago, years ago. I mean, it's just just such

1185
01:13:36,000 --> 01:13:38,760
Speaker 1: a different environment. I guess I wish I had known

1186
01:13:38,920 --> 01:13:42,960
Speaker 1: how rapidly things would change. You know. I spent the

1187
01:13:43,080 --> 01:13:45,439
Speaker 1: first ten years in my career as I as I

1188
01:13:45,479 --> 01:13:50,639
Speaker 1: said earlier in the conversation that Newsweek, magazine and Newsweek

1189
01:13:50,680 --> 01:13:53,960
Speaker 1: does exist, and magazines of course exists, but that kind

1190
01:13:54,040 --> 01:13:58,439
Speaker 1: of media organization no longer does. Um. There there was

1191
01:13:58,520 --> 01:14:02,280
Speaker 1: a whole class of journal who labored in the salt mine,

1192
01:14:02,360 --> 01:14:06,160
Speaker 1: so to speak, um, not really reporting and writing, but

1193
01:14:06,400 --> 01:14:11,360
Speaker 1: researching and and and performing support functions. Um, and then

1194
01:14:11,439 --> 01:14:14,760
Speaker 1: every week would be a desperate competitive scramble to get

1195
01:14:14,800 --> 01:14:18,439
Speaker 1: your articles in the magazine. And I actually think I

1196
01:14:18,560 --> 01:14:22,840
Speaker 1: learned a lot from that. But um, there's no replacement

1197
01:14:23,040 --> 01:14:26,639
Speaker 1: for writing and publishing and repeating and reporting and getting

1198
01:14:26,720 --> 01:14:29,360
Speaker 1: out into the world. And and those are the kinds

1199
01:14:29,400 --> 01:14:33,080
Speaker 1: of skills that are rewarded in today's journalistic environment. And

1200
01:14:33,200 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 1: so I think I might wish that if I was

1201
01:14:36,560 --> 01:14:38,880
Speaker 1: able to foresee the way in which the media climate

1202
01:14:38,960 --> 01:14:41,439
Speaker 1: would change that I had been, that I would have

1203
01:14:41,520 --> 01:14:44,960
Speaker 1: been a little bit more productive in my earlier, earlier years,

1204
01:14:45,240 --> 01:14:48,880
Speaker 1: where where like success at a big magazine, just being

1205
01:14:48,960 --> 01:14:51,320
Speaker 1: at a big magazine like like news Week, seemed like

1206
01:14:51,400 --> 01:14:54,240
Speaker 1: a career accomplishment on its own. But of course, you

1207
01:14:54,280 --> 01:14:57,439
Speaker 1: know that world no longer exists. We have been speaking

1208
01:14:57,520 --> 01:15:01,240
Speaker 1: with Brad Stone. He is the author of Amazon Unbound,

1209
01:15:01,680 --> 01:15:04,759
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos and The Invention of a Global Empire. Thanks

1210
01:15:04,800 --> 01:15:07,280
Speaker 1: Brad for being so generous with your time. If you

1211
01:15:07,479 --> 01:15:10,280
Speaker 1: enjoyed this conversation, well be sure and check out any

1212
01:15:10,320 --> 01:15:14,479
Speaker 1: of our previous almost four hundred interviews we've done over

1213
01:15:14,520 --> 01:15:19,240
Speaker 1: the past seven years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify,

1214
01:15:19,600 --> 01:15:23,599
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. We love your comments, feedback

1215
01:15:23,640 --> 01:15:27,200
Speaker 1: in suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at

1216
01:15:27,200 --> 01:15:30,920
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. You can sign up for my daily

1217
01:15:31,040 --> 01:15:34,479
Speaker 1: reads at rit Halts dot com. Check out my weekly

1218
01:15:34,600 --> 01:15:38,080
Speaker 1: column on Bloomberg dot com slash Opinion. Follow me on

1219
01:15:38,200 --> 01:15:41,640
Speaker 1: Twitter at rit Halts. I would be remiss if I

1220
01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:44,479
Speaker 1: did not thank our crack staff that helps put these

1221
01:15:44,600 --> 01:15:50,280
Speaker 1: conversations together each week. Rolie Volmer is my audio engineer.

1222
01:15:50,520 --> 01:15:55,360
Speaker 1: Atico val Bron is our project manager. Michael Boyle is

1223
01:15:55,520 --> 01:15:59,920
Speaker 1: my producers slash booker. Michael Batnick is my head of research.

1224
01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:04,479
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Rihults. You've been listening to Masters in Business

1225
01:16:04,880 --> 01:16:06,040
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio