
A Writerly Chill at Jeff Bezos’ Fire - kevbin
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/technology/a-writerly-chill-at-bezos-fire-.html
======
GabrielF00
This is a strange article for the Times. Some people who previously attended
an event that nobody has ever heard of have now either not been invited or
chosen not to attend. Very few people are talking about it on the record. Is
this news? What's the significance?

The Times' coverage of the Amazon/Hachette feud has been the first time I've
ever understood the phrase "East Coast media elite".

~~~
selmnoo
I would say it's an extremely important article, and I'm glad the Times is
covering it.

The meeting feels strangely reminiscent of
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-
a-b...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-a-bar/)
(though the Bin 38 meeting was probably a lot more overtly evil happening).

Basically, whenever a private entity is having kind-of-secret or completely
secret parties, you can bet a lot of weird business deals are happening, or at
least, steps that take place before decisions are made (buttering people up,
exchanging lavish gifts, etc.). This meeting was possibly a move by Bezos to
win favour of writers and artists who are currently positioning themselves
against Amazon, and kind of threaten the ones against him by not inviting (in
the sort of "you won't have a career if you go against me" message kind of
way, I'm guessing, I don't know).

But at any rate, I do think whenever meetings of this sort happen, newspapers
should cover it.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Or maybe there's no big conspiracy at all, and Bezos just likes to have a good
time hanging out with people he likes (which doesn't include the people who
have been calling him names in public for the last six months).

~~~
selmnoo
We're talking about a guy who leads the world's biggest commerce site...
gathering writers and artists for a big party where he gives them big gifts
and even goes so far to provide them transportation on private planes.

It's an entirely possible explanation that Bezos just loves throwing parties
and giving writers gifts for no other reason than the fact that he loves
giving people he's not related to big gifts... I don't discount that as a
possibility, I'm just saying it's also a possibility that there's backroom
dealings taking place designed to strengthen Amazon's position. I don't think
it's unreasonable to cast doubt on this theory, that Bezos may have ulterior
motives to this party.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"I'm just saying it's also a possibility that there's backroom dealings taking
place designed to strengthen Amazon's position."

For example? What kind of "backroom dealings" would those be?

~~~
selmnoo
As I said before, the meeting is happening possibly to curry favor from people
who matter: writers and artists. Right now, a lot of writers and artists are
siding against Amazon and with publishers (Hachette in this case).

Since I've been working in the place I work at now, I've learned that these
things... happen. They're not make-believe stories thought up by
conspiratorial nuts, they actually happen. My boss got together with a higher-
up from a different department... all to get her daughter a job (I found this
out only accidentally). David Cameron used to have dinner outings with Coulson
et al., Murdoch invites people like Brin, Page, Zuckerberg, etc. to play golf
with him, now Bezos ostensibly spends millions on parties with people who make
the products he sells. Are we really so naive to believe that the people
hosting the parties have zero ulterior motive all the time? Murdoch just likes
to play golf with Sergey Brin because he thinks Brin is a stand-up guy? Bezos
has _so_ much time on his hands that he loves nothing more than to spend it
with writers whose books he sells? And give them gifts? And give them a ride
on his private jet? He's got no family to tend to? No over-work? Come on. Join
the real world. It's ugly a lot of times, unfortunately. Journal outlets keep
it in check by publishing articles like this and asking questions.

I recommend doing a second-reading on lukifer's comment, I think it really
gets it.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Right now, a lot of writers and artists are siding against Amazon and with
publishers (Hachette in this case)."

Not really. The petition in support of Amazon has about 4 or 5 times as many
signatures as the pro-Hachette one. The extremely wealthy authors who owe
their success to the old model of artificial scarcity don't like changes,
true, and neither do old media outlets like the New York Times. In the old
days, the major publishers had an iron lock on what got published, and the New
York Times had a near-lock on what became a "bestseller".

Now anyone can publish anything they want, and bestsellers are determined by
what people actually buy, rather than some secret method known only to the New
York Times.

> Are we really so naive to believe that the people hosting the parties have
> zero ulterior motive all the time?

Well, until you have some actual evidence, I'm just going to operate under the
assumption that Bezos likes parties.

~~~
selmnoo
> Well, until you have some actual evidence, I'm just going to operate under
> the assumption that Bezos likes parties.

Oh, absolutely. I'm also entertaining that as a possibility myself. I'm just
arguing that news journals should cover events like this anyway, because they
almost always are noteworthy in one way or another.

There is an unbelievable amount of corruption everywhere you look: politics,
technology, the valley. We've almost become too fatigued, we almost don't
care, it doesn't shock us anymore. That's upsetting to me. One way corruption
can perhaps be cut short is if we keep a close eye on these things, check out
what's suspicious (I'd say this Bezos-hosted party qualifies as being
suspicious, even if there is absolutely zero de facto evidence of there being
corruption), and jump on first sign of wrong-doing. If we'd done that earlier
with News of The World, less messy shit would have taken place. If we'd been
watching Steve Jobs closely in the beginning, maybe we could have caught him
before he did that collusion shit with the other CEOs in the valley.

~~~
jiggy2011
How do you tell the difference between a few billionaires hanging out together
and "backroom dealing"?. Once you reach certain levels of wealth it probably
becomes awkward to hang out with regular people.

