Thread by @profgalloway

Here we go! Live tweeting the @PBS @frontlinePBS documentary on Amazon, "Amazon Empire" #frontlinePBS — watch at pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…

"Big things start small" — can't deny it, Bezos has long-term vision & a gift for storytelling. #frontlinePBS

Everything we admire about Amazon is also something to fear. @FranklinFoer 💯
#frontlinePBS

"the internet was growing at 2,200% a year" — those were the days

Btw Bezos still owns the URL "relentless.com" — what he wanted to name Amazon initially

#frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Bit of a change in demeanor

#frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1192777681789739008

That first office, with the sign Bezos spray-painted himself

#frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Customer experience = "customer ecstasy" — good storytelling for investors

#frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

"I was shocked to see how predictable people are" — customer tracking, nice disguise of "customer ecstasy" — "It's all about the data, everything." Well told, the moral dilemma here, "it felt unsavory, but that was the business of Amazon"

#frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

"Bezos would spend years losing money and he convinced investors to go with it." This is Bezos's single biggest accomplishment & the foundation of the firm's success. "It's all about the long term." This was revolutionary & no other firm plays by these rules.

#frontlinePBS

Bezos, Seattle, 1998, four years after founding Amazon. For the first 10 yrs, the company sold mostly books & DVDs.

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

"The Gazelle strategy" — how Amazon started pursuing weaker booksellers (#7 etc) before more successful ones — relentless, slow pursuit. And you see the demands for unprecedented kickbacks (leading to relentless, non-negotiable HQ2 demands)

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

Btw how big a part of the internet is Amazon? It's is 8.8% of U.S. digital ad revenue, up *53%* from a year ago. And advertising isn't even one of its core businesses.

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

2005 ... Prime "quietly unrolled" — a risky bet that paid off. WAIT WHO'S THAT HANDSOME PROFESSOR?

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

Prime being "a tremendous expense" and one of the biggest drivers of Amazon's growth. Less than 10 warehouses at the time, so warehouse building spree begins.

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

Now the part about predatory capitalism practices ... (warehouses) coupled with monopoly tactics — "you can push people a lot farther when you're the only job in town"

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

"People who've worked in warehouses for decades say this isn't the same, this is something different" — demands for productivity. Countdown by seconds accomplish tasks.

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

The constant upping of the quotas seems akin to lab experiments on rats. But can you go faster? Faster? Corporate response falls flats, responses feel tone-deaf.

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

Drivers have to deliver over 250 packages a day—a dizzying pace of less than 2 min/package

100s of crashes involving vehicles delivering Amazon packages over 5 yrs

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

Trucks "big enough to be filled with hundreds of Amazon packages" but small enough to not be taxed by the federal government. Deaths/accidents, there is no record, [shrugging] these are contractors, not our responsibility.

@frontlinePBS #frontlinePBS

If I were to write a sequel to The Four, it would be The One: Amazon

Most companies that can afford to be unprofitable for 20yrs can be pretty innovative... Amazon's ability to convince investors NOT to expect profits is its biggest (of many great) achievements.

@frontlinePBS

The architect of the "no profits" strategy was Joy Covey #genius. She later died in a bike accident — tragic, incredible mind.

businessinsider.com/joy-covey-2013…

@frontlinePBS

.@franklinfoer has done amazing work fighting against Amazon's monopoly powers. Good detail on how DOJ responded to his shining light on their anticompetitive bullying of @HachetteBooks

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

"You're renting the Amazon customer." (Same as you do on Facebook.) Third-party sellers account for 1/2 of the sales on the site.

But Amazon partners with brands the way a parasite partners with a host.

👉 profgalloway.com/partner-vs-par…

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Prediction: #Amazon gets to $2T in value when it gets into healthcare. It's bought several healthcare startups (Pillpack etc). It has the technical capacity to offer healthcare offerings in an industry (healthcare) extremely ripe to be disrupted.

profgalloway.com/time-machines-…

Here's Jay Carney — former White House press secretary to President Barack Obama — now Amazon PR chief.

Bezos's only remaining "competitor" / terrain to conquer is legislation/politics, preventing regulation/antitrust.

Wonder why HQ2 is in VA?

#frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

VOICE — it's crazy how #Apple blew it, had an early start w/ Siri and totally let it go.

"It's one more way for Amazon to gather extremely valuable data. Convincing people to have one of these in their homes is a genius trick."

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Amazon & taxes:

Our society is based on profitability (23% of our tax base is corporate profits). What happens when the third-most-profitable company has paid $1.4B in taxes & Walmart has paid $70B in taxes, although Amazon added the value of Walmart in a 3mo period?

Here's @shoshanazuboff #gangster—Amazon wants to have the entire environment mic'd—they want your kitchen, they want your neighborhood walk. Ring is in partnership with police departments, cops are "Avon reps" given scripts by Amazon to promote Ring

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Amazon's "We are obsessed with customers" is starting to sound like FB's "connecting the world"—a rosy gaze covering up aggressive data mining, profit seeking, competition destruction, employee abuse.

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Oh look, who's THAT?!

https://twitter.com/davisliumd/status/1229970869591560193

Amazon & Whole Foods — it made sense, they needed the delivery system, last-mile especially, and they needed brick and mortar and an image update. I got lucky predicting it.

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Media — Amazon to spend $7B on original content, catching up to #Netflix's $11-12B. Netflix in shark-infested waters.

Whole industries are now featurized (made a feature/accessory) to selling paper towels.

profgalloway.com/land-of-the-un…

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

"Prime members buy more shoes" — in fact Prime members buy $800 more than non-Prime members

"Bezos is now one of the old studio bosses" — and that's before Bezos bought the Jack Warner mansion (of Warner Bros)

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Amazon added the market cap of entire media companies in the last 13 months — as just a feature of their business

#HQ2 was not a contest but a con... It was always going to be NYC (where a newly single billionaire would want to spend time) or DC (for political control). Instead, 238 cities spent thousands of dollars pitching millions in tax breaks.

@frontlinepbs #AmazonEmpire

Public servants @SenGianaris @CoreyinNYC did the right thing defending their constituents — asking the right questions about infrastructure effects. Amazon got up & left, refusing to negotiate. Currently Amazon is outpacing the promised #HQ2 jobs.

https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1203373073069678594

Wow: "I think they're now at a scale where that [breakup] could potentially make sense." — one of #Amazon's earliest employees

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

A bit ironic Bezos saying "we have to save this planet" while spending billions on space exploration or years vs. climate change until ... yesterday

@frontlinePBS #AmazonEmpire

Well, @frontlinePBS did a great job on this film. Watch at your convenience: pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…

Live tweeting OVER