Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carole Masser and I'm
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Speaker 1: YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. Hello everyone, my name is
Speaker 1: Joel Webber and I'm the editor of Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to host our leaders Behind the Story conversation,
Speaker 1: this time with my colleague Brad Stone, the author of
Speaker 1: the forthcoming book Amazon Unbound, which we excerpted in this
Speaker 1: week's cover story. The conversation we're about to have it's
Speaker 1: going to make you want to pre order a copy,
Speaker 1: so go get that done asap. Brad, thanks for joining.
Speaker 1: I started working on this book in um late two
Speaker 1: thousand sev and so two thousand eighteen comes around suddenly
Speaker 1: h Q two is launched and amazons in the middle
Speaker 1: of this very polarizing process to find a second headquarters,
Speaker 1: which kind of ends in disaster in New York City
Speaker 1: in early two thousand nineteen, at the same time that
Speaker 1: Jeff and Mackenzie announced their divorce on Twitter, and then
Speaker 1: the National Enquirer comes out with this explosive revelation about
Speaker 1: Jeff's personal life, which leads to all sorts of craziness.
Speaker 1: So in the as I'm writing, as I'm researching this book,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're like these earthquakes, and what I
Speaker 1: thought was a tame little business book suddenly has to
Speaker 1: veer into the territory of explicit photographs and cyber espionage
Speaker 1: and you know, per you know, alleged Trump interference in uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in the Jedi contract, and and the question
Speaker 1: of whether the National Choir story was politically motivated. So
Speaker 1: the whole thing was this hall of mirrors, can of
Speaker 1: worms that I had to navigate, and there you were
Speaker 1: suddenly writing about gossip rags, and so let's talk about that, like,
Speaker 1: because the first, the first thing that really said all
Speaker 1: of this in motion was the announcement of their separation.
Speaker 1: And so I'm just curious, like knowing what you know
Speaker 1: about the basis is in Amazon, Like what did you
Speaker 1: first think when you when you saw that and then
Speaker 1: when the news that begin to trickle out happened? What
Speaker 1: went through your head? As somebody who watches um Amazon closely,
Speaker 1: I think my reaction was the same as pretty much
Speaker 1: every other Amazon um executive or anyone close to the
Speaker 1: company or who observes it, which is just here surprise, shock,
Speaker 1: you know, because well there it's a you know, it's
Speaker 1: a very private family. So obviously, um, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't know what's happening inside any family or any marriage.
Speaker 1: But you know, Jeff had had basically made the story
Speaker 1: of his marriage part of his public persona, you know it,
Speaker 1: talked about it a lot um um, And so it's
Speaker 1: just a surprise. He's also so so disciplined, so careful,
Speaker 1: and you know the fact that his private life had
Speaker 1: become fodder for you know, this past its prime tabloid magazine.
Speaker 1: It was just a shock on a number of different levels. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that had happened at all, and that he
Speaker 1: allowed it to happen and had you know, when you
Speaker 1: look back on it, and some of this is in
Speaker 1: the Business Week excerpt. You know, he he conducted that
Speaker 1: relationship really out in the open throughout two eighteen. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, him and Lauren went to um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're at Blue Origin launches together. He brought her to
Speaker 1: the Seattle Amazon headquarters to the see the Washington Post
Speaker 1: printing presses. Um. In fact, it was it was really
Speaker 1: conducting it as if it wasn't a secret. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: which is which is fine, Um, except that I think
Speaker 1: he underestimated or perhaps didn't care about the extent to
Speaker 1: which he had become such a big public figure and
Speaker 1: the extent to which you know, tabloid elements would be
Speaker 1: interested in his life. And it's then kind of metastasized
Speaker 1: from there. So let's drop, um, everyone into the story
Speaker 1: with a fantastic lead which goes, raise your hand if
Speaker 1: you think you've had a harder week than I've had.
Speaker 1: And this is Bezos and Amazon's headquarters talking to to
Speaker 1: whom put And that's interesting because you know, this is
Speaker 1: in a book about Amazon, right and and it is
Speaker 1: fundamentally an Amazon story. Even though this is something that
Speaker 1: happens in Jeff's life. It rocks Amazon. Everyone is surprised, um,
Speaker 1: you know, at at at this at this crisis that
Speaker 1: has enveloped their boss. He comes into this s team
Speaker 1: meeting in early two thousand nineteen and he he's sort
Speaker 1: of apology. He comes close to apologizing for it. Um.
Speaker 1: He he reassures everyone that he's, you know, had adult
Speaker 1: conversations with Mackenzie, that she's fine, the kids are fine.
Speaker 1: So thanks for being focused on the business. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, and this leads to a little bit
Speaker 1: of a disillusionment within the company. They recognize it within
Speaker 1: retrospect that something some strange behaviors were explainable now. So,
Speaker 1: for example, Amazon had requested helipads be part of its
Speaker 1: second headquarter offices in in Queens Long Island City and
Speaker 1: Northern Virginia. And if you remember, it was a really
Speaker 1: polarizing request in in New York, and the New York
Speaker 1: Post had it on its cover, and it's starting to
Speaker 1: stir up some of the animosity towards Amazon's project. And
Speaker 1: you know, later we learned that not only is Laurence
Speaker 1: Sanchez a helicopter pilot, but Jeff has taken flying lessons himself,
Speaker 1: and they've bought his and hers Bell's textron helicopters um.
Speaker 1: And then similarly, Amazon was floating a plan, and this
Speaker 1: is in the Business Week story, to create a second
Speaker 1: share of Amazon stock, a second class with lower voting rights,
Speaker 1: which Amazon disputes this characterization. Yeah, I just think in
Speaker 1: context of this being ultimately your business story, I thought
Speaker 1: that that the dual class thing was a really important
Speaker 1: thing because keep in mind, Amazon went public before the
Speaker 1: rest of the tech companies, the facebooks of the world
Speaker 1: had this dual class structure. So so what does that
Speaker 1: what does that represent for for you know, those of
Speaker 1: us who are making sense of Amazon, right and and
Speaker 1: important to note that Amazon never did this. It it
Speaker 1: pitched this this dual class plan to some of its
Speaker 1: largest institutional shareholders, and they were perplexed, like, why would
Speaker 1: you do this? You know, definitely not. They don't want
Speaker 1: to do anything that might potentially dis dilute their influence
Speaker 1: on the company. And and then later they when the
Speaker 1: divorce tweet was announced, a lot of people at least
Speaker 1: interpreted it as as some exploration that Jeff was was
Speaker 1: doing to see if in the divorce settlement he might
Speaker 1: retain some of his voting power over the company, and
Speaker 1: in fact, they ultimately resolved that because Mackenzie's shares, Jeff,
Speaker 1: Jeff retained voting influence over those shares. But as we've seen,
Speaker 1: and she's getting rid of those shares, she's she's giving
Speaker 1: away a lot of her money very quickly. And when
Speaker 1: the shares pass on, I would imagine their voting rights
Speaker 1: go to their new owners. So you know, again, Amazon
Speaker 1: dispute that interpretation. But a lot of people inside and
Speaker 1: outside the company we're looking at these things and wondering,
Speaker 1: and I think, with some with some good reason, whether
Speaker 1: Jeff's personal life had begun to really impact his stewardship
Speaker 1: of the company. So, if you're just joining us, my
Speaker 1: name is Joel Webber and the editor of Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Brad stone Um, the author of the
Speaker 1: new book Amazon on Bound, in my colleague here at Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: We excripted his book this week with the untold story
Speaker 1: of how Jeff Bezos beat the tabloids. If you haven't
Speaker 1: read it yet, you can go to Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash business Week and get that excerpt Um, and please
Speaker 1: remember the pre order Brad's book. Brad, there's so many
Speaker 1: little nuggets in actually substantial news. In this excerpt, why
Speaker 1: don't you give us another one. We've talked about the
Speaker 1: dual class thing. What was another um thing that people
Speaker 1: will find surprising? Okay, I gotta remember, Um, here's a
Speaker 1: good one. Here's a good one. Um. And I dropped
Speaker 1: this in at the very end. You know, over the years,
Speaker 1: there has been this funny little search, uh to find
Speaker 1: the Bezos boat, Like the richest man in the world,
Speaker 1: does he have a luxury yacht somewhere? And about two
Speaker 1: years ago, um, there was a false report that, in
Speaker 1: fact he had bought this kind of four million dollar
Speaker 1: motor yacht, and they denied that that was true. And
Speaker 1: you know, I was wondering it as well, because him
Speaker 1: and Lauren were showing up on Barry Dealer's yacht and
Speaker 1: David Geffen's yacht. And in fact, um, I I at
Speaker 1: the end of my search, I found a super yacht.
Speaker 1: Um sailing a sailing a three mass schooner that's being
Speaker 1: h constructed by the Dutch company Ocean Co. That's under construction.
Speaker 1: Now you know that the Jeff is building. And not
Speaker 1: only is it this magnificent yeah, but because it's a
Speaker 1: sailing yacht, you can't land helicopters on the deck because
Speaker 1: the mass. And so they're building and I did not
Speaker 1: know this term. Um, they're building a support yacht with
Speaker 1: the helipad so they could land the new helicopters on
Speaker 1: the new near the new yacht. So anyway, that that
Speaker 1: was another delicious little tidbit that's in the story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these the companies that build these yet obviously hyper
Speaker 1: hyper secretive. So you have to like, you know, basically,
Speaker 1: like you know, go trolling through whatever local Facebook photos
Speaker 1: you can find of of things under construction. And you
Speaker 1: found one, right, that's right there, There was a there
Speaker 1: there is a sailing a yacht community on Facebook, and
Speaker 1: I was looking at it and and there was a
Speaker 1: photo of an unfinished hole and it was the code
Speaker 1: name was something like Y seven, And and I looked
Speaker 1: on Ocean Coast site and there was a Y. See
Speaker 1: I might be getting the number wrong for memory, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It didn't say who the owner was. And
Speaker 1: that was one of the bread crumbs along the way
Speaker 1: that made me think, you know, um, there are only
Speaker 1: a few people in the world that might build a
Speaker 1: yacht of the size and scale. Okay, so the real
Speaker 1: juicy part of this story is the stuff that gets
Speaker 1: into uh Jeff Bezos, UM Laurence Sanchez, their relationship and
Speaker 1: sort of the drama that ensues. So why don't we
Speaker 1: talk about that, because once this thing gets out in
Speaker 1: the open um. You know, most of us UH discovered
Speaker 1: everything through this medium post that was a news event,
Speaker 1: but in and of itself, right, um, and what you
Speaker 1: basically helped us piece together was the untold story that
Speaker 1: led to that moment. So rewind the clock a little
Speaker 1: bit and and talk to us about how National Enquire
Speaker 1: and everything else fits together into this the drama that
Speaker 1: unfolded between Jeff Bezos and and am I Right, it's
Speaker 1: such a long tangled story, UM, So let me try
Speaker 1: to boil it down. And there are some coincidences that
Speaker 1: um I concluded are just coincidences. But you know, I
Speaker 1: sort of a frank in the book that like, this
Speaker 1: is is kind of my it's such a peculiar saga
Speaker 1: that based on the evidence that we have, now this
Speaker 1: is is what transpired. And I'll go quickly, but essentially,
Speaker 1: in the fall of two eighteen, Dylan Howard, the the editor,
Speaker 1: the chief content officer of AMI, editor of National inquiry.
Speaker 1: It gets a little upset at the at the Washington
Speaker 1: Post pursuit of the inquires catch and kill reporting on
Speaker 1: behalf of Donald Trump, and the authorizes a look into
Speaker 1: the life of Jeff Bezos, and a memo goes out
Speaker 1: to inquire reporters to dig up dirt on the world's
Speaker 1: richest man. And there's no other information, nothing about an
Speaker 1: affair and nothing like that, and all this is now
Speaker 1: in the voluminous court filings. Then, coincidentally, Laurence Sanchez's brother,
Speaker 1: Michael Sanchez, approaches the paper, the tabloid paper, with this
Speaker 1: mysterious scoop that he knows of a wealthy tech billionaire
Speaker 1: who's dating a B list actress. Long story short, Michael
Speaker 1: is basically informing on on his sister in her new relationship,
Speaker 1: and over the next couple of months provides the Inquirer um,
Speaker 1: not with any not with um. This is a family
Speaker 1: Twitter space, so I'm not going to get too explicit,
Speaker 1: but you know, not with any explicit photos, but with
Speaker 1: a lot of the text messages and other photos that
Speaker 1: shows that show his sister is having an affair with
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos. Um. You know, the Inquirer publishes well, first,
Speaker 1: you know, Jeff and Mackenzie get wind of this report.
Speaker 1: They announced their divorce on on Twitter UM. And then
Speaker 1: there's a battle between UM, Jeff's camp and the inquirer UM. Jeff,
Speaker 1: Jeff's security consultant, Gavin de Becker begins to insinuate that
Speaker 1: there were political motives, UM and sort of unexplained mysteries
Speaker 1: behind the story. It wasn't an unreasonable conclusion because you know,
Speaker 1: Michael Sanchez is a peculiar guy. He's he's a Republican,
Speaker 1: he's overtly conservative on Twitter, He's got relationships with Trump
Speaker 1: World figures. And of course am I did as well.
Speaker 1: They were the news organization that you know, did the
Speaker 1: catch and kill um, you know, on on stories about
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's infidelity. Anyway, the media, Jeff publishes the Medium
Speaker 1: post accusing am I of extorting him and really insinuates that,
Speaker 1: you know, there were political um motivations and that maybe
Speaker 1: even the Saudi government was involved, and of course the
Speaker 1: Saudis had reason to have enmities against the Washington Post
Speaker 1: as well. And in the Medium report, Jeff kind of
Speaker 1: wraps himself up in the mantle of the Post and
Speaker 1: says he's proud of the work. And you know, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't think it was deliberate misdirection.
Speaker 1: That there might there might have been good reasons to
Speaker 1: suspect that this was a politically planted story, But in
Speaker 1: the end, all the evidence, the currently available evidence, suggests
Speaker 1: us that it was a much simpler story. Um, And
Speaker 1: you know that that this was a story ultimately of
Speaker 1: you know, a brother who maybe in his own peculiar way,
Speaker 1: was trying to protect his sister but but nevertheless ended
Speaker 1: up creating more of a problem for him and and
Speaker 1: for his sister and enter her new partner. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: is it possible one day we'll find that there was
Speaker 1: a hidden another hidden level of secrecy and conspiracy to
Speaker 1: the whole thing. It certainly is. But I went as
Speaker 1: far and deep into it as I would ever want
Speaker 1: to go, or I think anyone else have gone has gone,
Speaker 1: and and and really the available evidence does suggest that,
Speaker 1: you know, the Saudis they might have hacked Jeff's phone.
Speaker 1: I I don't know, but there's certainly no evidence and
Speaker 1: it would contradict the available evidence, you know, if in
Speaker 1: fact they were a kind of secret source all along. Okay,
Speaker 1: So There's another character that we haven't mentioned yet, Gavin
Speaker 1: de Beeker. And this is um sort of Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: is uh sort of private bulldog. UM who you know,
Speaker 1: you would just expect that the richest man in the
Speaker 1: world would have somebody like this basically at his beck end. Call,
Speaker 1: what did Gavin de Becker break loose? Yeah? He he's
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's an accomplished investigator, has got an
Speaker 1: amazingly successful security company. He's an author. Um. He he
Speaker 1: has a long relationship with with the Bezos family. He
Speaker 1: starts Jeff basically gives him, you know, endless resources to
Speaker 1: go pursue the truth. He's talking to Michael Sanchez and
Speaker 1: you know pretty much recognizes pretty quickly that you know,
Speaker 1: saying that Michael Sanchez had played some role in in
Speaker 1: at least tipping off the National Enquirer. And he also suspects,
Speaker 1: you know, reasonably that you know, that there might have
Speaker 1: been political motives because not only is Michael this outspoken conservative,
Speaker 1: but because the Trump world had so much animosity towards
Speaker 1: the Washington Post and the Jeff and Amazon, uh you
Speaker 1: know at the time. Um, and so you know, he
Speaker 1: starts writing articles in the in The Daily Beast or
Speaker 1: giving interviews that do suggest that this is part of
Speaker 1: a of a grand conspiracy. Um. You know, it's um.
Speaker 1: You know, he he does identify Michael Sanchez as being
Speaker 1: the primary source, but he also really does lay a
Speaker 1: lot of the groundwork for you know, some of the
Speaker 1: confusion that came out as a result of it. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't necessarily think that any of that was
Speaker 1: done as a an overt pr strategy to obfuscate, but
Speaker 1: it did obfuscate. If most people are going to reflect
Speaker 1: in this peculiar bit of history and the in the
Speaker 1: in the life of the world's wealthiest person, they're gonna say, well,
Speaker 1: didn't the Saudis have something to do with that? Was
Speaker 1: Trump responsible? Wasn't there a brother? And a lot of
Speaker 1: that is because of Jeff's medium medium post and Gavin
Speaker 1: de Becker's um stories in The Daily Beast, And you know,
Speaker 1: in the end, I concluded it wasn't as complicated as that. Um.
Speaker 1: It was also I thought one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: thing about this was sort of once Bezo sort of
Speaker 1: let Um the Becker sort of like loose in terms
Speaker 1: of trying to to plush out the truth, right unlimited
Speaker 1: resources to do so. Um, he actually did engage with
Speaker 1: with Michael Sanchez and and immediately just had like a
Speaker 1: sniff of something that something was a little off, and
Speaker 1: that ultimately sort of culminates with this the Catton mouse
Speaker 1: game with with the photos of them, um, which is
Speaker 1: in a pretty interesting place. So why don't we go
Speaker 1: ahead and cheer that? Oh boy, okay, what happened? What happened? Right?
Speaker 1: I I I can't remember if Twitter spaces has rated
Speaker 1: r PG thirteen, but keep it okay. So the lynch
Speaker 1: pin of this whole thing, and again one of these
Speaker 1: little avenues that you know, when you're writing about a
Speaker 1: big tech company, you don't expect to be going down.
Speaker 1: But what did the wire ever have what will colloquially
Speaker 1: refer to as the dick pick? That? That's it? Right?
Speaker 1: Did they ever have it? And it's a it was
Speaker 1: it was part of the letter that was viewed as
Speaker 1: extortive that Jeff wrote about in his medium post. You know,
Speaker 1: they referred to it in the story. You know, did
Speaker 1: it exist? Did the paper have it? And as I
Speaker 1: you know, and this is actually something that the Southern
Speaker 1: District of New York and the FBI as they tried
Speaker 1: to unravel all this and figure out, you know, should
Speaker 1: there be charges. That's something they looked at. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: what I what I AM told Michael Sanchez told them
Speaker 1: is that the inquirer was was bugging them for they
Speaker 1: wanted Sanchez to give it to them. He was hemming
Speaker 1: and hang and resisting, and finally he said, Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: show it to you, and he went to a meeting
Speaker 1: in in uh sorry, he was in l A and
Speaker 1: the enquired editors were face timing with them in uh
Speaker 1: In from New York, and he showed owed them the
Speaker 1: dick pick. Except he didn't and this is this is
Speaker 1: uh in the story. He did he what he showed them,
Speaker 1: it's unclear if he ever had he really had the
Speaker 1: photograph in question. What he showed them was a photograph
Speaker 1: that he had downloaded from an escort website, and he
Speaker 1: passed it off as an authentic item. And then they
Speaker 1: believed they had it um and didn't understand that they
Speaker 1: were you know, that it was sort of another level
Speaker 1: of of deceat let's call it deception from their source.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, you just never expect to go there as
Speaker 1: a tech reporter, right, did I break Did I did
Speaker 1: I break any Twitter rules with that district? We'll find
Speaker 1: out later. I think we'll find out later. But but
Speaker 1: I think he did a good job, uh speaking good
Speaker 1: good jobs, Brad. Like I want to kind of bring
Speaker 1: this back home to a business story, like ultimately, like
Speaker 1: this is um, you know, one of the most successful
Speaker 1: business people of all time, and obviously this story took
Speaker 1: him places that he probably never expected to go. But
Speaker 1: can we bring this back to Amazon and also what
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos has accomplished his business, Like what insights did
Speaker 1: you learn from from reporting on this particular part of
Speaker 1: the story that relates to how Amazon has come to
Speaker 1: you know, just dominate um um everything right. Well, you
Speaker 1: know it's it's actually something that I had sort of
Speaker 1: understood and maybe even experienced a little bit um myself.
Speaker 1: If if you remember after the Everything story came out, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Jeff and Mackenzie at the time, Um, well,
Speaker 1: Mackenzie and a bunch of other Amazon executives left me
Speaker 1: one star reviews, you remember, because they didn't they didn't
Speaker 1: love the book and it was such a unique and
Speaker 1: interesting way to object to a piece of journalism. And
Speaker 1: then you fast forward to the medium posts, and of
Speaker 1: course they're upset at the National enquir and he does
Speaker 1: this bold, unusual thing of publishing their their emails in
Speaker 1: their negotiation. And it so it underscored for me that
Speaker 1: kind of Bezos mindset, which is he sort of he'll
Speaker 1: he'll throw a playbook out the window, and he'll come
Speaker 1: up with something totally new, totally unique, something that kind
Speaker 1: of shakes the ground under his, at least perceived adversaries.
Speaker 1: And they do that with products too, right, He's he
Speaker 1: never wants to launch a me too product. If they're
Speaker 1: going to do a smart watch, they're going to do
Speaker 1: something totally unique. You know. The new Amazon smart watch,
Speaker 1: which hasn't done all that well. Um, records your moods
Speaker 1: and and gives you and gives you feedback on on
Speaker 1: your emotions and how you're behaving. Right, there's always something different.
Speaker 1: And so this whole saga with the National Enquirer, you know,
Speaker 1: is is the base is the Bezos operating philosophy laid there.
Speaker 1: You know, he's going to do something bold and unexpected.
Speaker 1: Um and usually, as we say on the cover of
Speaker 1: Business Week this week, Jeff wins, right, I mean that's
Speaker 1: he comes out on top, and now he's retiring as
Speaker 1: CEO later this year at the helm of um I've
Speaker 1: lost track a one point seven trillion dollar company, and
Speaker 1: his fortune has succeeded two d billions. So lots of
Speaker 1: room for critique, lots of ways in which regulators should
Speaker 1: look at Amazon, but you look at you know, his
Speaker 1: moves over the past twenty five years, and you know
Speaker 1: you have to you have to admire or at least
Speaker 1: be a little odd by the way in which he
Speaker 1: has built his empire. Okay, what other elements are you
Speaker 1: excited for people to read about in the book which
Speaker 1: comes out? Win? And I pre ordered this online? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm Joel. I hope you've pre ordered one copy for Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. Can I pre order an autographed to that?
Speaker 1: How does that work? But when did it come out?
Speaker 1: And what else are you excited for people to read? Sure?
Speaker 1: So May eleven, So next Tuesday, I'm available at your
Speaker 1: friendly neighborhood bookstore or retailer in addition to being for
Speaker 1: sale online and on Amazon. Um, I will I will
Speaker 1: offer Lawrence. Do you think Lawrence Sanchez will give you
Speaker 1: a one star review? But do you think maybe maybe
Speaker 1: we can hope I'll autograph copies that are bought from
Speaker 1: my my local bookstore, book Passage in Court of Maderic, California. UM,
Speaker 1: So if you go there and order online and ask
Speaker 1: for an autograph copy, I'll do that. And I'm just
Speaker 1: really super proud of the whole book. Um, everything from
Speaker 1: the story of Alexa. There are some surprises in there,
Speaker 1: um that will come out next week. How you know
Speaker 1: Jeff conceived this product and launched it. Um to the
Speaker 1: way in which Amazon devised its transportation, you know, the
Speaker 1: network the vans that are driving our streets and in
Speaker 1: the Amazon airplanes that are in the air now, and
Speaker 1: the costs associated with that growth and and of moving
Speaker 1: so quickly. Uh. And and to the hidden story of
Speaker 1: the HQU two saga. I've got all. I've got the
Speaker 1: cities that Amazon that the internal HQ two committee inside
Speaker 1: Amazon had selected, but basically before Jeff and the senior
Speaker 1: leadership team overrode them and picked New York and d C.
Speaker 1: There's so There's what I'm really excited about is all
Speaker 1: the news and the tidbits and the great anecdotes that
Speaker 1: are in there, and that I hope people just come
Speaker 1: away with a deeper understanding of what is really a
Speaker 1: complicated company and a complicated person. Brad, do you have
Speaker 1: any idea how many people you interviewed for this? I do,
Speaker 1: because um, I was. I was recently counting to get
Speaker 1: an inaccurate tally, and it it definitely exceeded three hundred.
Speaker 1: And you need you need to do a lot of
Speaker 1: interviews when you're writing about Amazon because not many people
Speaker 1: have the full picture. It's a really decentralized company. So
Speaker 1: you have to go and do a couple of dozen
Speaker 1: interviews for every topic you're you're looking at, and they
Speaker 1: also turn and over at Amazon is high and for
Speaker 1: that reason, you know, people don't have a full chronological
Speaker 1: picture either. So it was it was a large number.
Speaker 1: All right. That's where we're gonna call it. Thanks to
Speaker 1: all of you for joining this episode of Behind the Story.
Speaker 1: You can read the untold story of how Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: beat the tabloids in this week's Business Week. Subscribe at
Speaker 1: business Week dot com, Bloomberg dot com, Brad Uh thank you.
Speaker 1: You can follow Brad at Bradstone Fallow, business Week at
Speaker 1: b W and me at Joel Webber Show. Um. Please
Speaker 1: preorder Brad's book Amazon and bound uh and get that
Speaker 1: out autograph copy from his local bookstore. Thanks again everyone,
Speaker 1: have a great day. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com,
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