
Jeff Bezos on Post purchase - _pius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jeff-bezos-on-post-purchase/2013/08/05/e5b293de-fe0d-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost
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RickHull
Bezos:

> _While I hope no one ever threatens to put one of my body parts through a
> wringer, if they do, thanks to Mrs. Graham’s example, I’ll be ready._

TIL that this is a reference to a threat from Nixon's Attorney General, John
Mitchell, not to publish the Watergate story:

> _Katie Graham 's gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that's
> published._

from
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Graham](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Graham)

~~~
caycep
Ah in the era of new "scandals", it's a good reminder of the old age of dirty
tricks. Although I suppose the more things change, the more they stay the
same.

I forget if this was put in the Robert Redford movie or not...

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subsystem
Slick letter, by paragraph:

1\. Transfer credibility from previous owners. 2\. Reassure the readers. 3\.
Reassure the employees. 4\. Prepare people for change. 5\. Turn focus to being
part of something bigger so they don't rock the boat. 6\. End on a positive
note.

~~~
ngoel36
Jeff Bezos is easily one of the CEOs I respect most in this world.

~~~
ra
Totally.

At the time, I was deeply inspired by his talk at Startup School 08:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nKfFHuouzA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nKfFHuouzA)

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larrys
A nice letter but this:

"Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about –
government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses,
charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there. I’m excited
and optimistic about the opportunity for invention."

Reminds a little of "Bud Fox" (played by Charlie Sheen) in the first Wall
Street where he gave how he was going to turn Blue Star around.

Hard to believe what he says in that paragraph hasn't been tried before and
it's like "oops the rest of the newspaper business missed that wow"!

~~~
AsymetricCom
I don't think it's that they missed it our that other newspapers are immoral,
but simply market forces are guiding them to a state where they have no other
choice to cut corners.

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digisth
It doesn't seem at all unlikely that we'll be seeing more of this over the
coming decade. With the paywall experiments showing mixed results, and not
coming close to the old (and still declining) ad revenue, and no magical
replacement for their lost classifieds, a new "journalism patronage" model may
be what allows many of these organizations to stay afloat. Whether from
altruism, ego, a feeling of public service, or a desire for a "propaganda"
arm, as some other commenters have stated (which seems very unlikely to me in
this case), those with the means may well be what keeps institution-backed
investigative journalism alive.

~~~
austenallred
Seriously, how expensive is $250 million to control the most important and
influential voice coming out of Washington? Regardless of what motives Bezos
may have, that's not a bad deal.

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chuhnk
I remember a similar speech given by a director of a certain tech company that
acquired us. 10 minutes later people were being let go and shortly after 15%
of the employees were told they would be getting 6 month contracts.

~~~
notatoad
that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm sure it sucks to be downsized, but
cutting staff you can't afford to pay in order to save a dying company is
infinitely better than driving a company into the ground because you don't
want to fire anybody.

and i don't see any promise here _not_ to fire people. he explicitly says
change will be necessary.

~~~
chuhnk
Those kinds of decisions need to be made after understanding the
responsibilities of each employee that is being let go. Two years later and my
job is still required at the large tech company that swallowed us, along with
many others that were being terminated.

------
nicholassmith
Well Bezos has already shown he's capable of making one low profit margin
business a success so he's got form for the role.

It's a classy move, and a very classy letter.

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bennyg
I'm not sure if the intentions are true to form, but that's a very beautifully
crafted letter.

~~~
vanderZwan
And in the worst case we have new material for a Citizen Kane remake.

~~~
hhorsley
I wonder what his "rosebud" is

~~~
gwern
"Kindle".

~~~
arjie
Apt, considering what happened to Rosebud.

~~~
gwern
Yes, that was the joke. (Kindle isn't anywhere near as obscure as Rosebud, so
even though the word 'kindle' has the same syllable count and stress as
'rosebud', it doesn't seem like a good _Citizen Kane_ allusion - _until_ you
remember what happened to Rosebud at the end of the movie.)

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mydpy
Anyone know what he means by this? "While I hope no one ever threatens to put
one of my body parts through a wringer, if they do, thanks to Mrs. Graham’s
example, I’ll be ready."

~~~
mydpy
I Google'd. From wikipedia: "Graham presided over the Post at a crucial time
in its history. The Post played an integral role in unveiling the Watergate
conspiracy and ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Graham and editor Bradlee first experienced challenges when they published the
content of the Pentagon Papers. When Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein brought the Watergate story to Bradlee, Graham supported their
investigative reporting and Bradlee ran stories about Watergate when few other
news outlets were reporting on the matter.

In conjunction with the Watergate scandal, Graham was the subject of one of
the best-known threats in American journalistic history. It occurred in 1972,
when Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, warned reporter Carl Bernstein
about a forthcoming article: "Katie Graham's gonna get her tit caught in a big
fat wringer if that's published." The two words "her tit" were cut on
publication."

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michaelmartin
Perfectly framed letter, it's interesting that he doesn't make mention of a
single negative point or competitor. All very reassuring instead, and it reads
like he has just been given the reins essentially and won't be rocking the
boat for a while.

~~~
jusben1369
I thought this though was one interesting comment: "and enabling new kinds of
competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs."

Hmmmm. First shot fired?

~~~
jack-r-abbit
I don't read it that way. The Internet most certainly has enabled new kinds of
competition in the news business. And some of them don't cost much money. For
example... people posting crap they see on Twitter. I don't think there was
any ill intent in that comment. I read it as a simple fact that they are
competing with other news entities with little or no operating costs.

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shawndumas
print view

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jeff-bezos-on-post-
pu...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jeff-bezos-on-post-
purchase/2013/08/05/e5b293de-fe0d-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_print.html)

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ferdo
One Bilderberger sells paper to another Bilderberger.

> He is also a member of the Bilderberg Group and attended the Swiss 2011
> Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland. -
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Recognition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Recognition)

> He is also an invitee of the Bilderberg Group and attended conference
> meetings in Greece 2009,[4] and Spain 2010 -
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_E._Graham#Other_roles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_E._Graham#Other_roles)

~~~
pc86
What has that got to do with anything?

~~~
kmfrk
The Bilderberg Group is regarded by some as a conspiracy theory wherein a
group of people gather to decide how to rule the world. You know, like the
Hellfire Club's Inner Circle.

The Guardian constantly make a big fuss over it.

(It's really just a lot of influential people meeting annually(?) in private
to have some insightful discussions.)

~~~
nhaehnle
_(It 's really just a lot of influential people meeting annually(?) in private
to have some insightful discussions.)_

Which ultimately means that the conspiracy theory is correct, except that
reality sounds less flashy.

After all, a democratic society has all sorts of proper channels to have such
discussions in. Meeting in such an invite-only club that is not part of the
official checks and balances _is_ somewhat problematic, because it leads to
decisions being pushed through that did not emerge from democratic processes.

~~~
tsotha
"[O]fficial checks and balances" are for _governments_ , not groups of private
individuals. They don't have the power of the state behind them.

~~~
icebraining
_They don 't have the power of the state behind them._

No, they have the power of many states behind them, both through corruption
and plain economic stranglehold.

In any case, who do you think participates in the Bilderberg group?

 _The 2009 meeting participants in Greece included: Greek prime minister
Kostas Karamanlis; Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen; Swedish foreign
minister Carl Bildt; U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg; U.S.
Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner; World Bank president Robert
Zoellick; President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso; Queen
Sofia of Spain; and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands._

Not that I give much credence to the conspiracy theories.

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AYBABTME
That's good news. I like Jeff Bezos.

> Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about [...] and
> working backwards from there.

Interesting how one of the core tenets of Amazon is:

> from the customer and working backwards from there.

Disclaimer: I'm interning with Amazon.

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pachydermic
It's hard to find good, well thought articles that lack the sensationalism and
ideological bias many of us (myself included) are more likely to click
on/read. I can't speak to whether the news has always been like that (although
I'm inclined to think that it hasn't), but it's troubling. There are just a
lot of forces which are working against good journalism on the internet - most
of which are just a consequence of how the internet is organized.

I really hope this is a good thing. I hope it is not just another data point
adding evidence to a downward trend. Please don't mess this up, Bezos.

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sheikhimran01
This is a smart move from him!

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SpikeDad
Dear Employees:

You're all going on minimum wage. Don't like it - we are ready to deploy
JournalistBot 1.0.

Oh, and we're moving to North Carolina so we can fire you anytime.

Love, Jeff.

~~~
super-serial
P.S. Feel free to compete with JournalistBot 1.0 on wages by accepting tasks
on Amazon Mechanical Turk. I've already created accounts for all of you and
given you approval to work on WaPo hits. The going rate is $1.00 per 500 word
article.

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AsymetricCom
I love the idea of an single, legal individual owning a media outlet instead
of a blameless media conglomerate.

>"The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests
of its owners. We will continue to follow the truth wherever it leads, and
we’ll work hard not to make mistakes. When we do, we will own up to them
quickly and completely."

Considering the transparency that AWS provides its customers into its
operations, I think we can take this statement seriously. Hopefully we'll see
the same kind of service to their customers as AWS, and a shift in the
industry to compete with more responsible reporting.

