But then the Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania reported that workers were passing out in the Lehigh Valley warehouse, then being transported to the hospital by ambulances the company kept waiting outside. When one of his executives proposed a modest investment to air-condition his warehouses, Bezos dismissed the idea as too costly. On the other hand, the only things that seemed to prod him to improve the conditions of his blue-collar workers were periodic media exposés. “When we win a Golden Globe, we sell more shoes,” he explained. But Bezos realized it not only helped retain Prime customers, a vital source of revenue, but also enhanced his other brands. For example, many colleagues were skeptical when Amazon began to invest billions of dollars a year in Prime Video. It is undeniable that he has taken synergy and brand-building in directions no one else ever thought of. Most of this very readable book is devoted to Bezos’s triumphs. Bezos is “either propelling the world into an exciting future” or “helping to blot out … free enterprise itself”. It has become “a referendum on the responsibilities that large companies have toward their employees … and the sanctity of our fragile plane”. With a market capitalization exceeding $1.5tn, Amazon embodies everything that is great and terrible about the modern world. Stone acknowledges that Bezos’ gigantic wealth raises “unsettling questions about the asymmetric distribution of money and power”. His business triumphs include the invention of the Alexa virtual assistant and his company’s hugely profitable computer cloud, so successful that he tried for years to hide its earnings, to stop Google and others realizing what a rich business it was.īut Amazon has also fought unions in every country where it owns a warehouse, sought billions in tax breaks and reduced stock opportunities for hourly workers even as Bezos trumpeted their raise to a minimum of $15 an hour. Now Amazon has disrupted everything from department stores and supermarkets to Hollywood movie production and even space travel.īezos’ best act of citizenship was undoubtedly his rescue and resuscitation of the Washington Post, one of America’s great newspapers and from which, unlike every other business to which he is connected, he has remained admirably detached. Once upon a time only Barnes & Noble was threatened by Amazon, in the realm of online bookselling. In a decade, Amazon has exploded into an exaggerated version of Engulf & Devour, the hydra-headed conglomerate invented by Mel Brooks.
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