Distract. Defame. Destroy. ..that's the game that's being played out against Amazon and Jeff Bezos. And it's wrong!!!
All one needs to do is look at the Medium post by the founder of Amazon as he artfully set the stage to bring to light an attempt by to silence him and his newspaper, the Washington Post, the publication that has always been one of the nation's bastions of what is known historically as the Fifth Estate.
Here's what has happened so far:
- Distract-The publishing of details of Bezos' alleged affair. I say alleged as no one knows if he and his wife didn't agree to live separate lives, something that is sometimes done when a marriage reaches a point where family love vs. a person's own desires diverge. That's the family's business, not the that of the various publics'. By making the affair story public it's about distraction. Personally I don't care if Bezos had an affair or not. He's human, and while this may rile more women than men, especially those who never had extra-marital affairs, it's not a game changer and the news is at best tabloid journalism.
- Defame-we own our own name, image and likeness. While Jeff Bezos is a "public figure" that doesn't mean that private communications between he and Ms. Sanchez, even those sent over licensed public airwaves, are for public consumption. While it's one thing for TV programs like TMZ to buy photos and video from paparazzi who follow high profile celebrities and personalities around hoping to gather up visuals that show the individual doing something to wrap a story around, dick or tit pics are in today's era the same as the "love notes" passed between students when SMS didn't exist. At worst in the pre mobile cam era, a Polaroid may have made its way between the paramours in the past. The threat to defame Bezos and Sanchez by publishing intimate shared pics is as wrong as the photo processors of old making copies of photographs sent for development and printing, or the same as store clerks at pharmacies looking at the printed photos, and then sharing views of those snapshots with colleagues and ustomers. In essence that's what is being threatened, and why publishing the photos would be defaming.
- Destroy-Let's get down to the real game that's being played out. Monopoly.Amazon and Bezos. In my short time on earth I've seen the US's Department of Justice conduct anti-trust cases against IBM and Microsoft. For a few years we've been hearing rumors that the next target of the DoJ will be Amazon, with the goal of breaking up the company. Money will be spent. Lawyers will profit, and in the end, just as with IBM and Microsoft some deal will be struck.
But why and why now?
- Amazon by putting HQ2 in both New York and Crystal City, VA is about to attract talent who are best and the brightest in various sectors. The ones that come to mind are advertising, finance and commerce in NY and logistics, political science and operations across various sectors from Washington D.C.
- The Washington Post is not just a newspaper, it is a newspaper that has for years been one of the pillars of the Fifth Estate. The media's job is to serve as the public's watchers, not be fan boys of government. Unlike media in Silicon Valley which is often more an unwitting dupe or extension of the industries it follows, real media looks at facts, and is held accountable when it makes errors. Unlike tabloids, who sell on sensationalism, real journalists have to be careful in what they write, and real publishers have to be even more careful and discerning at what they put out.
- Market domination-Amazon Prime. Prime is taking business away from just about every sector imaginable. The threat to UPS and Fed Ex, our fifth column military, whose vehicles can be added to defend our nation in a time of war if needed, with Prime Air and Amazon delivery is just one industry under siege by Amazon. Supermarkets, retailers, mall owners, landlords are all being battled, battered and bruised by a better approach. Prime + Cloud. But while legacy landlords, logistics and others feel the heat, you don't see the tech elite bitching about Amazon. Salesforce, Microsoft and other battle against them, but they do so not in the court of phoney public opinion, or the courts themselves (except over patents maybe). They battle it out by building better products. Even Apple and Google are finding ways to make peace with Amazon as distribution has always been the delivery channel for sales and is the third P of the 4 P's.
- "Greed is Good" vs. "anti-greed." All one needs to do is watch the Atlas Shrugged Trilogy on Netflix or Amazon Prime and you can see what's at stake. Bezos and Amazon are the targets of the "anti-greed" elite establishment who are threatened by a better way.
Jeff Bezos is to be commended for not playing the game. In publishing his stance he has done what John Galt would have done in Atlas Shrugged. In many ways his move is right out of either that book, or The Fountainhead.
Bravo.