Transcripts For KQED Frontline 20240712

Some ople asking if amazon is a monopoly. The question for the democracy is, are we okay with one company essentially winning capitali . How do you and jeff think about the call to break you guys up . Simply because the companys beenes suul doesnt mean its somehow too big. Narrator now on frontline. Domination was very much the idea. Narrator amazon empire. Frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporationor public broadcasting. Major support is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. T and Ford Foundation working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. Additional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. The park foundation, dedicated to heighteublic awareness of critical issues. The john and helen glener family trust. Supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. The heisingsimonsoundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities. And by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and ann hagler. And Additional Support from ura debonis and scott nathan. Jeff bezos has already conquered the retail frontier. Now hes got a plan to colonize the planets. Bezos is laying out his plans for colonizing space. Bezos is known for going big, and now hes literally shooting for the moon. Ar tor in may of 2019, jeff bezos, the richest person onhe planet, unveiled his latest invention. This is blue moon. Its time to go back to the moon, this time to stay. Jeff has said over and over again that the most important work hes doing is work in space. What hes built in ais really important and really interesting, and its, its revolutionized commee. But its only revolutionized commerce. Narrator bezoss plan is to art a new course for the future of humanity. Manufactured worlds rotated to create tificial gravity with centrifugal force. These are very large structures, miles on end. And they hold a Million People or more each. Narrator its an idea hes had since he was a teenager. His is me in high school. Quote the earth ite, andis if the World Economy and pulation is to keep expanding, space is the only way to go. I still believe that. The way jeff bezos sees is it is that consumerism is an example of how Todays Society lives beer than our parents did and our grandparents. And he wants, you know, future nerations to continue to have an increasingly better lifestyle. These are beautiful. People are going to want to live. Narrator bezos unveiled his extraterrestrial plans at ain time of grconcern about the empire hes built here on earth. Amazon is the greatbo disrupter, frooks to retail to grocery stores. Narrator for more than 25 disrupting and traing been almost eve aspect of our modern lives. Once you Start Connecting the dots, you see that amazon is building all of the invisible infrastructure for our futures. Amazon announced a healthcara nership. Amazon is helping the c. I. A. Build a secure cloud. How much of the intnet do you run . Thats a good question, um, its a lot, though. Narrator but in recent years, amazon and bezos have come under scrutiny for their t aggresactics and expandingr. Po bezos laughing everything that is admira abouamazon is also something that we should fear about it. Narrator for the past year, weve been investigating howos jeff built his empire and at what cost. And so think about this. Big things start small. Narrator jeff bezoss empire has its roots not in silicon valley, but on wl street. Thats where the young princeton graduate went to work in t early 1990s, at a Secretive Hedge Fund called d. E. Shaw. Av shaw was thone who revolutionized wall street by introducing data. And i think jeff really embraced that, that idea that, hey, if you ha data, ultimately, you win. One of ththings that david shaw asked jeff bezos to do was to go and investige new businesses, and in particular this new thing in the early 90s called the world wide web. P dial modem connecting we all know that a Communications Revolution is undeay in this count. What is the internet . Its sort of the mother of all networks. Its formation highways. Itkind of like your Remote Control to the world. Narrator bezos was qui to see the Untapped Potential of the new digital landscape and was determined to get in on it. I came across this startling statistic that web usage was growing at 2,300 a year. So, i decided i would try and find a Business Plan that made sense in the ctext of that growth, and i picked books as the first best product to sell online because books are incredibly unusual in one respect, andat s that there are more items inhe book category than there are items inny other category by far. So, when you have that many items, you can literally build a estore online that couldnst any other way. Arrator the store he wa imagining didnt exist, so he decided to build it himself. The reaction to jeffs idea to start selling books on the internet was pretty incredulous, you know, from a lot of the people close to him. His mom tried to convince him to just do it at night or over the weends. She didnt want to see him give up his job. Jeff called, and he told me that he and mackenzi quitting their jobs, and they were moving to seattle and starti a company. We i said, great, what are you going to do . He said, were going to sell books. I said, nice. Said, on the internet. I said, oh. Jeff, why will anybody buy anything from you . And he said, well, were going to have moreooks than anybody else. Narrator one of the first names bezos considered for his newebsite was relentless. Com. Why relentless . Relentless meant, we move on no matter what. Bv he ultimately,usly, decided that relentless wasnt quite the right fit. , amazrths largest river, amazon means gigan in terms of relentlessness, stopping at nothing, thats, is that an apt descriptn of jeff . Its not that jeff at nothing, its that when jeff sets his mind on a goal that he thinks he can achie, he wont stop until hes proven wrong or until he achieves it. Jeff and mackenzie had rented a house in bellevue. And then we moved to a small, secondfloor office in thepa sout of seattle. Narrator shel kaphan was amazon employee number one, e of nine former amazon insiders who agreed to talk on camera. What the company is now was nowhere in my wildest imagination. Nowhere, so, the fact that it could have thethe kind of position in the world that it has now, i had no clue. Narrator in july 1995, amazon. Com went live. It was an incredible novelty, it was tiny and obscure, and its very hard to imagine, but the entire universe that amazon now dominates did not exist. Amazon. Com, this virtual shop claims to be the Worlds Largest bookstore. Loarrator it didnt take for bezoss vision to prove prescient. What kes us different is vast selection, convenience we deliver right to the desktop. If our catalog were printed on i pat would be the size of sen new yorkity phonebooks. Narrator the Company Quickly outgrew the garage and soon had0 more thamployees. In 1996, james marcus applied to be number 55. There was a very palpable exciment in the air at this point jeff bezos w firstthis person to interview ever prospective employee. As so ishered into his office. He wanted to see how fast you were on your feet. He also always wanted to know your s. A. T. Scores. E wanted to know your s. A. T. Scores . Every time, yes. How old were you at the time . I was 36 or 37. This is the original sign that i made for amazon. C. Blue spray paint on white poster board. Folklore at that point, he was not thethe wealthiest man in the world. Pu heres my cter, amazon. Com up on the screen. Hello, jeff bezos. He was a small, nondescript,m ndyhaired sitting at a desk with quite a large anti er laugh. laughing in multiple scenes but he wasnt threatening, hg was a normaluy to a sort of azing extent. Hal 9000 hat, very important. Hal and i shara birthday, were both born on january 12. It belied, you know, an enormous, napoleonic ambition. One of the people i really like, thomas edison, heres a model of his original ght bulb. Hes famous for saying, onesp percent ation, 99 percent perspiration. laughs it turns out ideas are the easy part, execution is everything. Domination was on jeffs mind from the beginning. One of his sort of secondincommand people said to me, you have to undetand that jeff wants to sell many more things than books. Is and jeffs idehat in the neardistant future, you could buy a kayak from amazon. And if, and after you brout the kayak, you cou figure out good places to kayak and buy trel services from amazon. So, those ambitions were very clear, and this was very early on. But he was clearly thinking in those tes from the getgo. How did that ring to you at the time . A little bit citing and a little bit nutty. Amazon. Com, very good website. You should really try it. bezos laughs if you signed on to work ata kind of futuristic bookstore, and the guy who w owned suddenly talking about selling, you know, every object in the universe, you just werent sure how seriously to take it. bezos laughing bezos screaming playfully narrator though his public image was often unseriou. That was awesome narrator iide the company, bezos was a hardcharging manager relentlessly focused on the principle that would make amazon one of the most trusted brands in the world he customer always comes first. This culture of customer obsession. Obsessive focus on customer. O obsessr our customers. Totally obsessing over the custer experience. T we uscall it customer ecstasy. It means building, delivering, focusing on your customer. And we did it, you know, in the very, very early days at every stage. Narrato jennifer cast was there in the early days and is one of six top amazon executives the company put forward to speak to us. Customer obsession was ourh noar. And so, you know, it was a place where we knew we were a pa of something that was new, the internet. There was an excitement that we were doing something that hadnt been done before. It was exhilarating. We were all aligned around building for customers. Hey, you guys. Hey. bezos laughs ive ard there was an empty chair that would often be put at meetings. Yeah. Ho as in the pty chair . Yeah, so that empty chair was there to remind us all to understand the customer, have empathy for the customer, understand the details of the customer experience. Have to bring forward the voice of the customer. phone ringing thank you for calling amazon. Com. Narrator and bezos quickly learned that in this new onlinel world, he understand exactly how customers were behaving. All orders do need to be aced online. It was made clear from the beginning th Data Collectionf was also oneazons businesses. All Customer Behavior that flowed tough the site was recorded and tracked. And that itself was a valuable commodity. Have you visited our website . We could track how a custome navigarough the site. So we could see what you looked at, weould also see what you paused at, we could see what you put in your basket but didnt order, we could see what you put in your basket and der. So thats when we started realizing, man, this is rich. This is rich, richrich. And so weve used it for everything. What do you do with that infoation . Thats the data that allowsed us to prict, or try to predict, what books that you would like that you havent discovered yet. Nrator bezos treated the site as a laboratory, where he studied Customer Behavior along with his chief scientist andreas weigend. I was shocked to see how predictable people are. E if you take the time of y into account, if you take maybe when they we last on the site, how long they re on the site the site today, you know what theyre falling for. Whoever owns, collects, the ta, if you have access to it and rights to data, then you are king. Its all about the data. Everything. One of the most fascinating kind of tools we have at our sposal is the ability to do its, you know, its kind of this huge laboratory. We did not think about it as exploing, we thought about helping people make better i was starting to feel that that was less respectful toward the consumer, who was, after all, supposed to be our god, the person whose ecstasy was our and it was closer to getting aco into a milking stall andac exng as many pails as possible during each visit. And that felt a little moreun vory. But that was the business of amazon. Ma n has added 880,000 new customers. Narrator while bezos was using these insights to bringmo re and more customers into amazon. The number of customers who use the website has increased fourfold. Narrator thereas one thing he hadnt done yet. The companys never made a profit. Thats right. Now, why. How does that. Why. How does that. . It seems like a new math, doesnt it . It does. Pe narrator bezos would years losing money trying to beat his competition, and he convinced investors to go ong with it. One of jeffezos greatest accomplishments has been his abity to get wall street t accept the fact the fi 20some years, amazon wasnt going to be very profitable. O and thatskay because theyre building infrastructe that will cate huge opportunities for them to gain scale and gainr custand gain business. Narrator he spelled it out in a letter to shareholders after thcompany first went blic its all about the long term, herote, rather than shortterm profits or wall street reactions. He essentially says, we e going to forego profit in order to take market share. That our strategy is to lose money, which enables us then to put other companies out of siness who cant afford to lose money. Narrator that strategy wouldnt sitell with critics like stacy mitchell, who advocates for small businesses. In essence, at the very beginning, hes signaling to shareholders, i have a strategy to monopolize the market, and thats going to reward you, but its going to be far down the road, and will you come ong s. Th me . And they said ye narrator investors also recognized bezos essential orvantage over physical st, which had charge their customers sales tax, unlike online businesses. N so, collecting sales tax gave amazon a big leg up over bricks and mortar retailers. Anthat was central to thei early strategy of gaining market share as quickly as they can. What booksellers were saying to me is that, this is driving my ctomers to amazon. Theyll come into the store, theyll browse, they find what they want, but then theyll go buy it on amazon, because they so it was a very irksome, bearly, big issue for theook y vendors, first of all, tre kind of the canaries in the mine, so to speak, and then lots of other retailers. Amazon has added thousands of warehouse workers and three million square feet of space. Narrator amazons sastax advantage would be central tocc its suess as it expandedyo be books, into other products. And we have a fantastic nselection of things you look at. Electronics and then of course toys. Yeah, thank you, here is, weve got have the friendly pokemon. This is more than ten times then a typical, physical World Software store. Narrator but bezos was still a long way from his goal of amazon being the place where you could buy everything online. drills whirring and he saw a way to achieve it. Amazon could soon become the waart of the internet. Narrator there were thousands of businesses eager to sell online. It. Os offered them a way to do amazon is transforming itself from an online bookstore to an online mall. D narrator he transfor amazon into a retail platform ere anyone could sell their goods to his customers and vited thousands of other businesses to be a part of it. R its the easiest place anybody, small olarge, who wants to set up shop online to sell online, because they can access our 12 millionplus customers. Ll anybody,omers. Were talking about hundrs of thousands ocompanies with oliterally tens of millio products. Narrator namebrand stores stted selling bezoss platform, and so did tens of thousands of smalltr reneurs. Everyone knew amazon. Com. The only people that knewpe uperhoops. Com were the ones that were searching to buy a basketball hoop and saw our name on an advertisement. To us it was really a nobrainer. We knew that we would, you knowe incrur sales. First year we did 100,000, next year we did a million, we did two million, four million, we were doubling evy year in the early days. Narrator it was great for the companies and even greater for jeff bezos. Amazon has become the most recognizable name ecommerce. Narrator not only d he take a cut of everything other s businessesd, hed also keep his own store on the platform, competing against everyone else in the marketplace howned and controlled. He owns the main street. He hashe main street real estate. Not just one building on the corner, the entire main street. Narrator how amazon would wield s power over the online marketplace would eventually become a question for vernment regulators, but early on, there were indications. The first to see them were Book Publishers a zon took over a large market share of the Publishing Industry very, very fast. They were very quickly in a position to demand concessions. You know, i think that was a moment where publishers started to realize, oh, wait a minute like, we. Theyre our partner, but they now have the beginnings of a boot on our windpipe. Narrator inside the company, they had launched a strategy that some call the gazelle project, because theyd heard bezos wanted them to pursue publishers the way a cheetah pursues a sickly gazelle. Strongest. Ou dont go after the its like the cheetah. The cheetah looks for the weak, s for for the sick, lo the small, thats what you go for. So dont start with, you know,er nune publisher. Start with number seven publisher and then number six b publisher, athe time you get to number three, two, and one, the noise has gone, gotten back to them. Theyre going to know this is coming, and chanceare you may be able to settle that without a fullon war. We were just this little publishingoetry books andmpany, translated fiction. Narrator in the early 2000s, the number obooks Dennis Johnson was selling on amazon had been rising steadily. O th day, he got a phone call. Our distributor called us up to talk about our amazon contract. And he said, i went o ounner last night with amazon, it was like gointo dinner with the godfather. They want a kiback. Thats the word he used, kickback. And he said they wanted four percent more of our sales. As that unusual . It was. In our experience,t as totally unprecedented, yes. Narrator randy miller ran the european book team and says he saw nothing wrong wit amazons tough tactics to challenge publishers on prices and profit margins. In order to bring them into line, we would actually take them out of automated merchaising, take their prices up to list price; we would put references on the product page, their product page, saying, you want it cheaper, you want this book for, on this topic for a way cheaper price . Click here. Thought their worsetitoroever we was. Lyat was how amazon forced their vendors toto co stammering but thats an old walmart trick, i mean, it wasnt like amazon created that. And it made, it made a difference. And, you know, jeff kind of gotb excitet it. Narrator when Dennis Johnson still refused to give in to amazons terms, he says the buy button on all Melville House books suddenly disappeared, making it impossible fors customer purchase them on amazon. I mean, this is the company that referred to littl publishers like me as wounded gazelles, i believe . Thats how they think, thats how he thought from the beginning. And we eventually had pay what at the time i called a bribe. And our attitude toward amazon was, you know, render unto caesar that which is caesars. And then carry on as best as you san. Jeff bezos ma that amazon comes along and has access to a huge distributionf channel for your books. Has amazon been good for your business . E. Well, absolutely they h any bookseller that sells our books is goofor our business. So, im not complaining that amazon is selling our books. Im just complaining of the way that their tactics are hurtingov the industry i narrator in addition to granting interviews, amazon responded to written questions. Regarding Dennis Johnsons characterizations, it told us, amazon disagrees with this account. Were you uncomfortable with that sort of ruthlessness ever . Well, no, cause i was in retail i mean, people think thats ruthless. People at amazon, thatssome kind of mean, and im like, oh, a retailer and a supplier having a disagreement . Stop the presses it happens all the time. I mean, you know, look, youve got a finite margin, andso bodys going to have to give. Andand a lot of times amazon wasnt the one givin kindle is a purposebuilt reading device. Narrator the tension between amazon and Book Publishers would ramp up ev further with the unveiling of the kindle, which helped the industry transition to the digital age, but gave amazon more power to set prices lower. And new releases are only 9. 99. Un narrator athat time, barry lynn, an advocate for broad antitrust enforcement, was growing increasingly concerned by what he was hearing from publishers. If the door w open, the publisher would say, hey, you know, amazon, theyre just a urrrific customer, theyre biggest customer. Ey buy the most books, they sell the most books. We love them. Then you close theoor, and they say, amazon is destroying destroying our bus theyyre have way too much power, we must do something about them narrator lynn wanted publishers to speak up a public thought federal antitrust regulators might investigate whether amon was a monopoly, illegally abusing its market dinance in anticompetitive ways. , and theyd say, no wm not going to talk about amazon in public. Im not tag about them on capitol hill. Ey thill take retribution against me. To which you responded . Ll, thats why we have to do something about it. An narrator jennifer cast amazons Books Division in its formative years. Weve had a difficult time in some ways getting publishers to talk to us on camera about amazon. In part, it seems the reason ise thatre afraid. How do you react to that, that publishers find itbl uncomfortoalk about amazon publicly . I dont know, i mean, ii havent seen that. Yeah. I havt been in your shoes. Im sure they have. I mean, if youre saying that theythey dont talk negatively about us, of good things to say about us. Um, you know, ii dont know why they wouldnt speak their mindse ertainly value speaking our minds. There is this wellknown anecdotabout cheetahs and gazelles, this gazelle program. Do you know about that . I dont. Weve talked to where jeff had sai shouldt, basilly try to negotiate with Book Publishers and try to get better terms and treat thepu smalleishers as a cheetah would go after a wounded gazelle. I didnt hear the cheetah and gazelle example, but what we were looking for was people that were willing to moveway from the old model of bricks and mortar to a new model, which was, you know, aa Virtual Store that had many different types of opportunities to present their books to customers. I want to talk a little bit about how we think about innovation at amazon. Com. Narrator amazon would begin to accumulate even more power in 2005, when bezos quietly rolledn out a revoluy new Program Amazon prime. Now they have somethingca lled the prime shipping amazon prim we only launched this a week ago you pay 79 a year, and you get y shipping for free. Narrator it was a risky bet, and it paid off. The lynchpin, or the glue, if you will, and probably the seminal moment in amazons business history, was the introduction of what has become the most successful Membership Program in history, and thats prime. Many of you in this audiencel already be amazon prime mbers, bless you. Wais is very much appreciated. It changes thy you shop. Narrator eventually more than 150 Million People would sign up for the Free Shipping a tremendous expense for amazon. But to bezos, it was worth i the prime program at amazon is one of the most important. Drivers of amazons grow when you go on and look to buy a product, and its available in o days, delivered to your door anywhere in the country, that Amazon Prime Program becom a you back as a customer to keep buying and keep searching for new products on amazon. Narrator twoday delivery anywhere in the country was a big promise for a company that, at the time, had less than ten warehouses. Bezos went on a buildg spree. Acss the country amazon warehouses began to spring up, products being sol bezoss platform. Hed call them ffillment centers, and theyd create hundreds of thousands of js in places hard hit by the great recession. Ce ten pnt of pennsylvania residents unemployed. Job market is in complete disarray. Narrator like allentown, pennsylvania. At that time, it was trerendous news that an empl was coming and actually opening a facilitynd hiring people, versus, you know, gutting half the staff. Narrator Spencer Soper was a Business Reporter for the allentown morning call wn amazon opened in the area in 2010. He began hearing stories aboutin woin the warehouse. People are basicay in this big, sprawling warehouse thats stocked with goods in very random fashion. And they have scanners that tell them which things to get. And people are walking maybe ten, 15 miles a day. Eo so pe just kind of crisscrossing this big warehouse all day long. Narrator as workers told him about the punishing pa to meet the daily quota of packages, and the intense heat, soper and his colleagues started to investigate further. Eo e really felt like amazon was playing fast and loose with their, with their health. Narrator ser discovered there had been numerous complaints to auorities at the Occupational Safety and health ministration, osha. They actually had a complaint from an emergencyroom doctor who called their hotline one day saying, listen, you might want to check out this amazon place. Ive had, like, people parading through my emergency room to be treated for heat strs. There was a Security Guard who worked in the facility who sento a complainsha saying that heat stress inin cility. Fering and so theres just, like, these red flags right and left. Narrator after an investigation, osha said amazon needed to keep the temperatures in the warehouses lower. In a statement at the time, the wmpany said it installed Industrial Air conditioning and pledged that worker safety was its numberone priority. Amazon is shrewd businessople, shrewd businesspeople know when theyag have lev and when yourthe only shop hiring people in town, you can push them a lot harder than you can whenwhen theyve got alternatives. Narrator over the following years, amazon would hire hundreds of thousands of workers and become one ofth e largest jobs creato in the country. At the Fulfillment Centers, bezos experimented with new boost productivityhnologies to willingness to experiment is the key to be able to do new things. So we do, you know, hundreds of experiments every day in our Fulfillment Centers to get a little bit better. Invention. Ke incremental narrator when a Company Called kiva perfected ae warerobot, amazon bought the whole company. Amazon has acquired kiva systs. They make shipping robots. Narrator it helped transform the Work Environment in amazs warehouses. When i first showed up at azon in 1999, i led our Global Operations team. Nrator jeff wilke create the Amazon Fulfillment Center system and is one of two c. E. O. S under jeff bezos. As weve added 200,000 robots, in that same time frame since 2012 weve added 300,000 people in our Fulfillment Centers. So what happens is the robots change the work, so they allow us. People dont have to walk as far, which is a complaint that weve heard in the past. Make them higheruality, they becauswe present a smaller set of options toto employees. And thats all good for customers, and its good for employees to narrator but at the same time, complaints have persisted. People ove worked in warehouses for decades say, his is different. This is not the same. E re here today because we want to make sat these workers know about their rights in the workplace, especially around heat. Narrator Sheheryar Kaoosji is an advocate for warehouse workers in the san bernardino, california, area an amazon hub, with ten Fulfillment Centers and over 15,000 employees. Because of the way that amazon operates, because of the way that they set their rates for productivity, its a lot harder work physically but ao psychologically. Narrator we sat down with group in san berrdino whod recently worked at amazon. When they first got here, i thought as exciting. Like, for me, i was thinking maybe i could find aa place k where, yw, im going to set roots of a good job, you know, move up inin the place. Th but after beine for a while, i was like, theres no its like, okas is where i can probab make a career. But once you worked there for a certain amount of time, its just like, its just not realistic,ow they expect you to work. Narrator like dozens of workers weve spoken to around the country, they say theye struggled to kp up with the rate amazon expehem to pick and pack items. Ic how realire the rates that theyre giving you . I mean, whats. Not realistic at all. Notnot realistic . No. Theres absolutely no way to make rate, you know, you got to find little ways toto cheate it, becace you hit rate, by the end of the week, they raised i they bump it up ain. Cause they start seeing, hey, people can hit those rates, n hit those numbers, hey, lets push them a little harder. Ek every t seemed like it was going up. You have security camerasbe righnd you at all times, that are looking at you 24seven. And if you dont meet standards or the rates, youre out the door, youre just disposable. Every worker has a scanner at all times that basically track exactly where youre at. And they have a little blue line at the bottom of the screen, and it has, like, how many seconds that you have to ve idone by the time it hits zero, and it puts you into panic mode. And pretty much you cant talk to people, you cant be in the same aisle as them, you just consttly have to sit there scanning like a robot all day long. If they catch you noscanning, you get a writeup. And what theyre doing is theyre producing this mass of data that they are using to be able to analyze the entire workforce. Were not treated as human as robots. re not even treated were treated as part ofhe datatream. Its the incentive at any warehouse, on any assembly line, to get theost out of any worker. Yes. To make rates, toto be as efficient as possible, to be as productive as possible. So, i dont see exactly whats opposed to any othehouse. Amazon is the cutting edge. Other warehouses are starting to adopt these technologies, other companies are definitely interested in doing what amazon is doing. Data collection could become basically the standard for all workers, and that theres. Youre never good enough, you never able to keep up. Narrator amazotold us work rates are not based on individual employees performance, and that the scanning devices workers use are not for tracking people but inventory a common practice in the warehouse industry. Weve talked workers around the count, both current and former workers. Theyve deribed the pace of work as being really grueling. In the early thinking about rates and how far you could push human beings in terms of their productivity, what was the thinking about that . Well, obviously if the rates artoo high, youre not goi to have people showing up for work. So, we have 600,000 people at the company, most of them are in the Fulfillment Centers, and theythey come to work every day, they st for years. These are considered great jobs in the hundreds of communities where we have fulfillmen centers all over the world, and in the u. S. We have, aost every state has an operation in it, and people come to work because these are great jobs. Theyre safe, we pay double the minimum wage, e National Minimum wage, we have terrific benefits. The benefits for the folks tt work on the floor are me benefits that my family has access to our family leave is like 20 weeks. So, the rates are set so that we can accomplish what we need to, whicis get orders to custome in aa reasonable time and in a highquality way, and that creates a workplace that people want to come back to, and they do. Narrator amazon wouldnt fulfillmentcenter workers stay on the job or how often theyre injured. But workers we spoke to say the rates are higher than other warehoes and that the company rebuffs attempts to unionize. We do not belve unions are in the best interest of our customers, our shareholders, or most importantly, our associates. Narrator this is a clip from a video the company says it used in the past to teach rights and labor laws. Es the most obvious signs would include use of words associated with unions or unionled movements like living wage or steward. Early o amazon took a position to basically be antiunion. Y was that decision made . I dont think we made the decision to be antiunion. T we jel that all of the things thatthat unions wouldwould want toto get us to do, weve already done. Whatwh about setting rate, though . Do you not see that theres a little bit more leverage in them hands agement in this enario than ere would be in a unionized environment . I dont know, its hard to ispeculate on that, butbo think that we have the obligation to set rates that are, again, going to encourage people to seek the jobs and deliver for customers, you know, what weve promised. What would you say to someone, though, whos, whos worked inin your fulfillmentth center feels as though theres been. Thatthat humani are incrly being treated like robots . cause its something that weve actually heard, and i dont sense its hyperbole. Well, thats not the experience thatthat i had in tting it up or that ive seen. Its, its certainly trueth thatthae jobs are not for everybody, and therethere may be people that dont w do this kind of work. Narrator amazon executives also stress the company has become an Industry Leader in training its workforce for career advancement. We Just Announced a pledge recently to spend 700 million to upskill, which is basically creating Career Opportunities for people, 100,000 of our ployees. We pay 95 of tuition to go that isnt about amazon, thats about creating options for the employees, and i would expect those people to take advantage of that, work for us for a couplef years and then go do something that they would much rather do, and thats okay. There will be people th will hear what yall are saying, and theyll say, well, you signed up for physical i labor, a ja job, there were benefits, and they are now investing 700 million to do retraining for other types of jobs. s whhe real grievance . What is there to complain about . I actually used to think that way for a while whener i, when i first started, whoever i heard complaints from, i was like, well, it was in the job description, and you signed up t r it. The part they dolk about is the safety rules that you have to ignore to make rate. Its not just you go in, okay, and youyou do your job, and thats it. So, youre in, youre in a weird bind. Its incredibly hard to meet rate while following all the safety procedures. A complaint that weve hearfrom workers in terms of the sort of automation of their work as humans, some of them telling us that, yes, there are high Safety Standards in these Fulfillment Centers, b that in order to make rate, theyre having to cheat the standard aittle bit. Well, i would say thats not okay. So i, from the moment that i arrived 20 years ago, i made it very clear to our operations teams that we will not compromise the safety of our employees to do anything else. So, we have, we have a culture that ifif we are asking people to do something that is, that they have to do o fast to be safe, they can raise their hand and say, this isnt, andand well fix it. phone vibrates ar tor for years, amazon has put a happy face on its business and its workforce. give a little bit by supertramp playing give a little bit give a little bit of your love. The people are almost likecials, shadows and silhouette its all about boxes, and singing and bumbliir wayboxes to your door, like, oh, no, no. Theres so much that wene. Hello. Hey. They dont wa you to even think about how they do this. They just want you to be wowed and, oh, howd th, howd this get here . Ill give a little bit of my love to you. T they wanted people to j think, whoa, magic narrator and magic was a big part of bezos marketing strategy, with an emphasis one mpanys miraculous level of innovation and growth. We started amazon prime in 2005, but then something vy extraordinary happened. This. In 2011, the slope o graph changed a lo narrator as amazon grew, he wa his top executives to think about the kind of company it was becoming. He wrote a memo titled, amazon. Love. Copy of it was obtained by brad stone. The memo is another example ofeff being very prescient about the future. Its jeff grappling with the idea that all Big Companies are loved. Get uncomfortable hen wethat we talk about very Big Companies. Rudeness is not coo defeating tiny guys is not cool. Risk takg is cool. Winning is cool. Polite is cool. Defeating bigger, unsympathetic guys is cool inventing is coo explorers are cool. Conquerors a not cool. Some businesses, you can tell when you go in and haveme ings with them, they have a conqueror mentality. And theres a big difference being an explorer. Nqueror d and i think in, yoknow, this very inventive space that re in, it pays to explore. Narrator but to some watching amazons growth, the company was falling short of that ideal, and taking steps to make sure nothing got in its way. In 2013, amazon was moving to create its own Delivery System and made a key decision rather than hire its own drivers, it built a network of independent businesses to deliver packages. They werent just going to dabble here and dabble there. E they wering go and create a system that would rival fedex or ups. Narrator propublica reporter patricia callahan, in conjunction with buzzfeed, has investigated the system amazon set up. They figured out a way to get around regulation. The cargo vans they choose are big enough to stuff with hundreds of amazon packages, but theyre small enough thatr thnot regulated by the federal government. An 84yearold woman struck and killed by amazon delivery truck. A woman hit and killed in a narrator propublica and buzzfeed found that drivers are under intense pressure to deliver packages after striking him, the van maneuvered around salinas and his dog. Narrator and they documented more than 60 crashes, including 13 deaths, since 2015. An infant critically injuredh in a car cas died. When it came time to figure out whos responsiblzon would always say, its a contractor, its n our responsibility. Now youve been able to find 13 deaths. And thats over the course of several years. Is that statistically significant given all of the packages that they deliver in any day or any given yea i dont pretend to claim that theres only 13 deaths and that i found every single one. W i just found enough to sat this is happening around the country. With ups, theres a. Theres a federal record you can urok at how many serious i and fatal accidents they have. With amazon, that doesnt exist. No one knows theafety records of all of amazons contractors. Narrator amazon disputed the propublica report. El it would notse any data on crashes involving its Driver Network but told us it had a better than average Safety Record and that nothing is more important to them than safety. Any accident is one accident too many, so just as we were focused on safy in thet fulfillmnters and product safety, we are. We set very high standards with all of those partners for safe performance. We have training videos fothe third parties that work with us to help them understand what w expectn terms of the drive, we have Mapping Software that we use to help them find the right routes. Every one of our drivers i required, including the third parties, are required to have comprehensive insurance,it including liabinsurance, so that if there is an accident that the person whos injured is covered. To amazon wantet prime members their packages even faster. Nrator in the last year, amazon announced a change to th wa handles prime deliveries. Instead of delivering packages in two days, they pred to do it in one. Free xtday delivery all across the u. S. Its impossible for me to imagine a world 20 years fromwh noere a customer comes up to me and says, jeff, i love amazon. Rei just wish your prices little higher. Or, i love amazon. I just wish you delivered a little more slowly. Narrator at the same time the Delivery Network was bei set up, amazon was also rapidly expanding its product offerings, inviting more sellers onto the site. compur plays tune including those from china. It basicay makes it to where its supereasy for these companies, who are maybe not as careful with adhering to the law, where theyre able to just start a business up on amazon, import some stuff, sell it, cause some problems, and then disappear. Narrator rachel greer worked in product safety at amazon, and worried that the site was being flooded with untested and potentially unSafe Products. P are theroper warnings . Has it been safetytested for if a child chews owill the paint come off . Is that paint leaded . Most people would assume that theres a pretty high safety standard on amazon. And that assumption would be incorrect. Narrator she says thats becae amazon, like other tec companies, takes the position responsible if itsustomersre harmed by products sold by third parties on theite. If someone buys something that causes harm at waart or at target, a consumer can sue walmart or tget. Right, cause no ones forcing you, when you come into walmart, to enter the doors of walmart. They arent making y sign away your rights. But when do you sign that when you go on amazon. Com . When you make your account. When you accept the terms and conditions. Narrator people have been challenginamazons terms and conditions in court. Some have even been successful. Ultimately, whos on the hooa whustomer buys a dangerous product on amazon . Who takes ultimate responsibility for that . Well, in the rarewhere that, where Something Like that happens, if its a thirdparty seller, the sale is by a thirdparty seller, and it is the sellers responsibility to, to sell a legitimate product to a customer, and then, when amazon is the retailer, and we ll a product to the, to a customer, then its our obligation to make sure that we understand the manufacturer and the supply chain for that oduct and its, and its safety. But when the other sellers are selling in your store, youre not responsible for it ultimately, if theyreus selling yourmer a defective or dangerous product . I think the way things work in the u. S. Is that the seller of record is the person who is settg the price and who is purchasing the product, and for things not sold by azon and it says on the detail page, itll tell you who the seller is its e sellers responsibility for those things, and for us, its very clear. It says amazon. Com whenever we sell it. Do you audit your sellers in terms of whether theyre actually providing Safe Products to your customers . We do. You know, some of our sales. So about, almost 60 of our sales are by third parties, and ose sales, some of them come directly from the trd party,o were not involved at all. But you take a cut. I mean, its on yourfr tructure, it goes through amazon. Com, so, i mean. Well, its on ourre infrastrucn terms of the website and payments, but were not. And fs that, you know, youre taking a cut of the sale, right . Sure, sur and werepr iding, you know, traffic that, that. You know, its kind of the way they think about marketing is why they woulday that fee, but. Its harder to, before an experience, inspect that, thatod t. A South Carolina woman who bought a hair dryer on amazon said ts happened. Fire is coming out of the hair dryer. Narrator amazons approach has had consequences. A hoverboard caused a fire that destroyed their home. Narrator dangerous products were flagged by authorities in washington state. Found dozens of schoold supplies that gh levels toxic metals. Narrator and a recent report found thousands of banned, unsafeor mislabeled products. Th im having a hard time understanding sog, which is that, that. You know, amazons entire brand is about the customer, . Yes. That its. Oh, i reminded themis over and over again. You reminded them of what . I said that no customer wants to buy an unsafe product. No customer wants selectionth harms their child. No customer wants to buy something that burns down their l house because it looks cd its the latest, coolest thing. Sitting here today, are you able to basically say that the products that you sell on amazon. Com are safe . What i can say is, we work really hard to make sure thatey e safe. We have. Weve spent 400 million in the last year on systems that seek out things that are not safe, and, you know, there are of millions of products, andreds our job is to, as fast as we can, weeout the ones that dont belong on our site. Were going to have to be vigilant as a retailer and aa technology company, and were definitely dedicated to, to protecting the safety of our customers. Narrator we heard that concern for the customer over and over in our inte with amazon executives. Customer trust in a company like amazon, its sort of foundational. First leadership principle, and it, its not a corporate slogan. We try to stay really focused on customers. Very focused on, on delivering results for our providing a gretomer experience that customers. Delivering that, that customer delight. Narrato this commitment to the customer, and to keeping ices low, had anothebenefit it helped them avoid running afoul of regulators who enforce thnations antitrust laws. Its important to understandh sort o theres two fundamental philosophies of titrust, of antionopoly law. You know, theres the traditional philosophy, in which you, you want to break up all potential concentrations of power that you can. 3 but for the layears, theres been this chan in howo wetitrust. And this is the idea that the only purpose of antitrust should be to drive prices lower, to serve the interest of the consumer. Narrator lynn had been urging regulators to take a more traditional apoach and examine whether the company was gaining market power inve exploitaays stifling fair competition, but keeping prices low for consumers. We live in a sociy of consumers, thou, and seemingly there is some net benefit to all of us when prices are low. So, whats wrong with that view of things . Its obviously good for people to. For all people if we can drive down prices, if we have lowerpriced drugs, if we have books that anybody could buy. Thats a good thing. Its a good thing for society, and its a good thinfor us as consumers. But were not only consumers, were also citizens. Were also producers. Were also people o think and who make things and who grow things, and we want to have access to open marke narrator once again, then tenss most pronounce with Book Publishers. Amazon was selling around 40 of all new books in america and twothirds of all electronic books, thanks to the success of the kindle. Then, one of the Worlds Largest publishers, hachette, decided to push back. Franklin foer was one of its authors. Hachette and amazon set out to renegotiate their ebook contract. And hachette said, no, we dont accept the terms of your contract. And amazon basically said, to hell with you, hachette. Were going to stop delivering your books. If somebody searches for a hachette title, were going to redirect them to another publisher. Azons battle with hachet and the authors that hachette publishes is heating up. Narrator as bezoss virtual blockade dragged on for months. A bitter, sevenmonth standoff. Authors, includingellersf like douglas preston, were caught in the middle. Some authors were losing 50 to 90 of their sales from amazon. It was absolutely devastating to firsttime authors. It actually destroyed their careers. Did you see your les plummet . I did, yes. I saw my sales plummet tremendously. Narrator in frustration, preston penned an opter on behalf of all authors. It was published in the New York Times with more than 900 signatures. We authors have loved amazon. We have enthusiastically supported it, and this is how they treat us . This is not right. Amazon has been accused of doing everything from raising prices to deliberately delaying shments. Is this what happens when jeff bezos decides to flex his muscles . Amazon were at an impasse, douglas preston, franklin foer,h and other s went to washington, and asked the Obama Administration to open an investigation. I went to the justice partment and i went to t federal trade commission with the authors guild, and we tried to explain to them why this power was so dangerous. We pointed it out of all the ways in which amazon w bullying the Publishing Industry. The department of justice and their answer was essentially this amazon is one of the most Popular Companies in the country. camera clicks they have brought tremendous services to consumers, and theyve brought lower prices. And that we hadnt given them any kind of reason to open anan trust investigation. Narrator eventually, hachette and amazon wouldtt their dispute, with amazon allowing hachette to set bus own prices for ebooks offering it incentives to keep them low. Its great to be here at amazon. crowd cheering narrator azon would thrive during the obama years, and eventually account for nearl 40 of all online commerce in the country. Last year, during the busiest day of the christmas rus customers around the world ordered more than 300 items fr amazon every second. Narrator but the complaints about itctics would continue, with retailers of all kinds concerned that amazon had become the onlineshopping gatekeeper. Youve got to be on amazon. You have to be there, because thats where eveone is. That. 100 million prime subscribers. They are the de facto ecommerce channel in the United Statesod peri, end of list. Amazon executives have told us that there are many other options out there. There is walmart, there is alibaba. As a seller, youve got options. Ive hearthat response from amazon executives before, and we did th, we were listed, we listed all of our products on every other online marketplace. But its a testament to just how good amazon is. All of the others that were nonamazon combined did aboutha ten percent ofwe were doing on amazon. Narrator businesses big and small have been accumulating complaints about amazons hold on them. On amazon, the customer belongs to amazon itoesnt belong to the thirdparty seller. Youre basically renting the amazon customer. Narrator James Thomson used to recruit brands to come onto amazon and now advises them on how to do business with the company. I represent brands today that face a number of challenges with amazon. Narrator among those challenges, businesses say thatz am has access to their valuanle data, which gives it unfair advantage. They also complain about increasingly higher fees to star on the pla and pressure to use amazons warehouses and shipping services. We spoke to numerous namebrand companies, but none would share its griences on camera. My account was suspended. Narrator some smallbu nesspeople have been talking about their experiences good and bad onli. When youre selling on amazon, youre playing in someone elses playground. Who gets placed where, whether or not your product shows up in the search results. They suspended my account without warning. These are all things that are governed by azons rules. And if theres a dispute within that arena, if you feel you are mistreated, you know, the judge and jury is amazon. They dont care, theyll jusc kill your count like that or suspend it. There are all sorts of crazy stories about why people get their accounts shut n amazon. And it could take a week, it could take months, it could be never before youre back online again. Er amazon has the uand d the ability to basically take your business away from you at any given moment. Selling on amazon, take one. Narrator amazosaid thirdparty sellers account for more than halff everything sold on the site. Sell minilongboard skateboards. I sell mineral water. Narrator and its committed to its sellers success proactively contacting them when their accounts are at risk of suspension and offering an appeals process to resoe disputes. You already have great products. Scale up. Narrator but in the eyes of some businesses, amazon has essentially become like the railroads at the turn of t last century that controlled the flow of commerce across the country. Start selling today. Do you see yourself as being kind of like the railso ecommerce, that sellers bring their goods to markethr on your rails,gh your marketplace . I dont think of it that way, and heres why the, the vast majority of stuff thats. Well, all of the stuff thats sold is manufactured, right . T somanufactured, meaning there are brands and factories that produce stuffnd then sell it. Were one rcent of the retail sales in the world, about. Well, you are theet biggest maace online, right . E no, so, again, i, i dont. The idea that than online, distinct for brands to sell their stuff and distinct fromys al, just doesnt make the largest retailere far from so, i, i describe this as retail, and were comp against walmart and target and costco and carrefour and alibaba and tmall and all kinds of folks who are, are now selling both physical stores and online. Narrato in addition to pointing to other large retailers, inside the Company Employees have been schooled in how to talk about its size and power. When i worked at amazon, we had training specifically on the use of terms like monopoly. We were not allowed to use a term le market share. Amazon has whats known as Market Segment share. What is Market Segment . What is Market Segment share . I dont know, but i know that the lawyers amazon feel those terms are, are much safer than using terms like market shar so market share was something they were really concerned about. Clear somebody with the necessary Legal Training or pr training recognized that amazon was growinvery quickly, and when we were asked to use the term maet segment and Market Segment share, in essence its a polite way of saying, im not going to lk to you about how b we are. Narrator sinceameaving on 20 years ago, shel h kaphanas been watching the company with increasing concern, and hes speaking about it for the first time. I think that thar terization of amazon as being a ruthless competitor istr , and under the flag of customer obsession, they can do a lot of this which might not be good for people who arent their customers. I know youre not a legal scholar, but are you basically concerned that amazon is a monopoly . Ne im, im concthat it has that type of power. You technically can call it a monopoly or not, i dont know. Ra nr that question has continued to loom over amazon. I think that amazon is looking out, and the existential threat that they may face is going to be from govnment. Its whether or notpo cymakers are going to step in and intervene and say, you have too much power. Narrator for years, bezos habeen ramping up amazons profile in washington. Amazon habeen lobbying the f. A. A. To lift. Trying to cozy up to politicians, so that they will ve him the biggest tax breaks around. Narrator spending millions a ar on lobbying. Amazon lobbied more e governmeities than any other tech company. Narrator and hiring as its spokesman the former White House Press secretary jay carney youve got an army of lobbyists, manof whom have revolved in and out of government, including yourself. What are you hoping to get for all that lobbying spend anall that influence . Au one of the things we discovered is, b of the visibility of our company, but also the range of businesses that were in, we need subjectmatter experts on food safety, on transportation, on drones, on privacy. And also, we c be a resource, an information provider to policymakers and regulators. Traditional nse,rms ofhe trying to persuade somebody to do something, its just answering questions and, and providing data and information. Narrator bezos himself would also become a presence in the capital, and eventlly buy thee largest privsidence in town. Jeff bezos never really showed much interest inti po, but as hes cemented himself in the city, hesst arted to acquire this physical. Presence he bought a mansion, then developed it into a place that is explicitly designed to be social. It s a big ballroom, i mean, it is designed to create a real presence for him in the nations capital, where he can hobnob with the people who make decisions. Narrator hed even boughtsp the hometown ner. Jeff bezos sent a thunderbolt through the media world this we. Narrator spending a quarter of aillion dollars to rescue the struggling Washington Post. I do believe thatemocracy dies in darkness. I think that the capital city of the United States of America Needs a paper like the washingtonost. I got to say, you know, full credit to him, he hasntte ened in any of the coverage of the paper. D s invested in the paper. Every dollar of profit that the paper makes is plowed back into making it a better paper. Bezos allowed the post to hire, to restock its newsroom, atmosphere of sortdecline. Y id sathe Washington Post has really flourished under, under bezoss ownership. Lets cut this digital ribbon. Narrator at the time, critics saw a more cynical motive. Perhaps hes buying the washgton post to buy some sort of protection. Precisely. This deal could give him more influence over politics. St nobody hangs out in washington, dc, o go to the free museums. You buy a home in washington, you buy a newspaper in washington, because it is the most influential city in the world, and you want to lay your hands on that power. Narrator bos saw a Business Opportunity there, as well. The Obama Administration planned modernize the federal government by embracing Cloud Computing. Bezos had been quietly building a revolutionary Cloud Computing business. He called it Amazon Web Services. Its basically Computing Power in the cloud, but really its amazons server farms arnd the world that givele peccess to the kind of Technology Services they need. Narrator to keep amazon running, bezos had developed an unprecedengital infrastructure. He realized he could rent parts of it out, not just toes businebut also to the government. Our infrastructure is built to s the Security Standards of the most risksensitive organizations. Hes already got a huge edge in it. He other big competitors so he wants to take that lead and capture the u. S. Government. Narrator in 2013, he got revealed that Amazon Web Services had designed a computing cloud for the c. I. A. Amazon web services wasd awardetenyear contract for 6 million. Amazon is helping the c. I. A. Build a secure Cloud Computer network. The c. I. A. Contract was probably one of the best things that happened to amazoncloud business. Te it lifd all doubts about the security of the cloud and on whether you could trust amazon with your most precious data. The message to the world is, if the c. I. A. Trusts amaz with its data, then maybe other companies and government instutions can, well. Narrator and they d. Experience it with expedia. Narrator a. W. S. Became by far the worlds leadingin cloudcompplatform. On cbs. Narrator today, more than a million businesses, as well as pbs, pay amazon to store and manage their data. Narrator bezos had again anticipated the next frontier in technology, and had ma himself indispensable to it. What jeff bezos is after is really creating a company that is the irastructure, that owns the infrastructure for how commerce is done. And thats an incredibly powerful place to be. Please welcome chief executive officer of aman web services andy jassy. A narrator y jassy created and runs a. W. S. He credits the service with making it easier to do business and sparking innovation throughout the economy. Look at what a. W. S. Has enabled with regard to change in our society. Look at, netflix changed the way that we consume digital content, and airbnb changed the way that we get accommodations, and hola and grab and lyft and uber changed the way that we t transportation. A. W. S. Has enabled, has been a part of enabling all these huge innovations and changes in Consumer Experiences thatve have made life better for people. And were the cloud wh the innovation, the mo customers. Narrato the division generated 35 billion in sales rvst year. Amazon web sees. Yes build on. Narrator the success of a. W. S. Gave bezos billions to expand amazon om a company that Sells Everything to a company that does everything. A top priority. To boldly go where no man has gone before. Narrator . Was to creeut the scie hed fallen in love with as a child. Gentlemen, this comhas an auditory sensor. It can, in effect, hear sounds. Narrator a world of Artificial Intelligence, in which computers can think d make decisions for humans and about mans. Jeff bezos is a big fan of star trek. He, he admits that that was on his brain when he came up with the idea that amazon should be pursuing a little dit you can bark commands into. Stop. This is his beam me up, scotty fantasy realized. We started working on this device and our, our vision was, in the long term, it would become the star trek computer. When it first arrived from amazon, i didnt know what it was. I narraton 2014, bezossmp talking uter, the amazonth echo, hit market. Is it for me . Its for everyone. Narrator the voice known as alexa would embed amazon deeper into the lives of millions of people. Alexa, what do yodo . I can play music, answer questions, get the news d weather. They call it a personal j assistant, at that term implies this intimate connection that we then begin to develo with amazon. Alexa, sing the abc song. A, b, c, d, e, f. I believe that when we think about the future and the futurea wiificial intelligence, given where we currently are today, axa in some ways represents the moment that it becomes seamlesslynterwoven with our lives. Alexa, how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon . One tablespoon equals three teaspoons. H, okay. And the problem is that we forgethat its there. Alexa, lights on. Okay. Narrator but alexa is also listening and shes learning. Im answering questions and learning more. Narrator and that helps amazon in the race to dominate Artificial Intelligence. Alexa. Every time you ask alexa something, youre making the alexa algorithm better. Its one of the reasons why amazon, having had a head start, is able to kind of preserve that head start, because theyve got the mo data of anyone. Alexa is one more way for amazon to gather extremely valuable data. And this Data Collection is extremelimportant to thisss busiodel. Its extreme hard to do, and, you know, convincing people toy just depmething like this in their home is a brilliant trick. Narrator dave limp is amazons head of devices. How is it that you convinced tens of millions of people to put what is essentially a, a listening dece in their homes . Well, i, i would first disagreeith the premise. It doesnt, its not a listening device. The, the device in its cor is. It has a detector on it. We call it internally a wakeword engine. And that detector is listenin not really listening its detecting one thing and one thing only, whichw is td youve said that you want to get the attention of that echo. Narrator once the device is awake and the blue light is on, and last year, it was revealed th amazon employs thousands of people around the wo listen and transcribe some of the recordings to help tra the system. Do you think that you did a good enough job of disclosing that to consumers . That, that there are humans involved in stening to these recordings . We,e try to articulate what were doing with our products as clearly as we can. But if i could go back in time, and i could be more clear, and the team could be more clear, on how we were using human beings to annotate a small percenge of the data, i would, for sure. What i would say, though, is that once we realized that customers didnt clearly understand this, and within a ncouple of days, we added optout feature, so that customers could turn off annotation if th, if they so chos and then withia month or two later, we allowed people toto elete data, which they also asked for within that, within that time frame. You ow, were not going to always be perfect, but when we make mistakes, i thinkey is that we correct them very quickly on behalf of customers. Narrator but even one of the founders of Amazon Web Services approaches his alexa devicesau withon. When do you turn off your alexa . I turn off my alexa when i knowor a fact that the conversation that i am going to have, or, or whenever i justnt o have a private moment. I dont want certain conversations to be ard by humans, conversations that i know for a fact are not things i actually turn off those, then particular listening devices. We have had an incredible year. The team has invented a lot on behalf of customers, and i cannot wait to show you what we have. An narrator so far, lim his team have made alexa compatible with more than 100,000 produc. Eo frames allow you to get done more arnd you and be more present the everyday. Now theyre going to know more about you than anyone knows. Theye trying to move as intimately as possible and as quietly as possible into everyday life. Echo loop is a smart ring, packed with wa to stay on top of your day. Amazon wants to have the entire environment essentially miked. Alexa, start my running playlist. They want your walk in the park, they want your run down the city street. N ationwides teamed up with amazon to bring you the allnew echo auto. They want what you do in your car, they want what you do in your home. T amazon smaren. Alexa, bake for 30 minutes 350 degrees. oven beeps all these intimacie all this insight is being integrated. Analyzed and alexa, alarm off. That is an extraordinary kind of power that has never before existed. Narrator after alexa, amazon would go on to spend nearly all n dollars to buy ring. Hey, bud, the police are on the way. Narrator a doorbell camera the new neighborhood watch. As hey, geaway get out of there d narrator to promote it, amazon has enlise help of hundreds of local Police Departments. Its a phenomenal tool to assist detectives. Narrator they give them t accea portal to request footage and have gen free cameras to hand out and talking points. This system is so simple use. You have amazon in Partnership Th Police Departments, who have basically turned policemen into, like, avon salespeople for amazon ring. They have given Police Departments talking points and marketing materials to encouragn allation of ring by community residents. None of this was public knowlee. And this is rings first indoor cam. It is. Cute, is what i would say. Narrator amazon has continued to expand the scope of ring. Last fall, dave limp unveiled a version designed to monitor the inside of peoples homes. Within weeks, hackers discovered a way to terrorize ring customers. Did you see that video . I did see that video. What did you think of it . I think that that is a t dustry problem. Its not just abe, a ring camera it could be about its about any device in that. And weve already inated that one to make sure what, what the root cause was. Wa what w to be able too in those cases is, we want to minimize them. Wed like to detect them. And we also want to build tools that give them the ability so that doesnt. That, that makes it harder for those kinds of attacks to happen. Theres a lot of bad people in this world. Heres a device that seems harmless, and im justd wondering whether youre being straighth people about the attendant risks to your customers that you are obsessed with, supposedly. Well, its not supposedly, we are obsessed with customers. I, i would say that we are trying to build security features at every level of the stack operating systems, authentication, fraud detectionr we ohings that customers can turn on that make it even, make it even harder for those attacks to happen. Yo, whats up, hows your day . Who is that whats goinon, buddy . What are you watching . Narrator there were a ries of similar attacks across the country. Whats up, homie . I still seyou. You hungry . Whats going on, my main man shaq . Narrato and its not just hackers. Ring has fired some of its own employees for spying on customers. In George Orwells 1984, he describes a dystopia in which, you had to live, you did live from habit that became instinct in the assution tt every sound you made was and wonder if you ever think about how easily this could anco dystopian to some degree . Well, i dontto live in that world. Technology that, o myinvent the teams invent the technology that would create that world. And so. But i am an optimist. I, i think if you take the, the absolute view of that, we wouldnt invent anything. Were increasinglywo living in d in which your products and your designs are there. Do, can you see how it could be concerning in some ways that wel cant opt out of that world at this point . Oh, sur i can see why it could be concerning to some customers. Our job in building that technology is to build it in such a way that it, that it takes into account for the scenarios that you jlked about, as best as we possibly can. You know, the, the reality of it is, that world happened way before ring or alexa. Narrator thats something that bezos himself wrestled with 20 years ago. I believe that privacy is going to be one ofhe prominent issues of the 21st century. E thing is, there are towns now in the United States that have installed security cameras on every corner, and their crime rates decreased by 80 , but do you really want cameras on every corner . There are very strange things that are going to happen over the next 100 years with respect to technology that are goi to challenge us as a society to figure out how we want to deal with priva. Narrator decades later, of expanding the uthatvanguard kind of technology. Introducing amazon rekognition video. Rekognition allows you to pass an image to us. You can say, do these two faces mah . Which is incredibly useful for applications in the security space. You can agine. Narrator after amazon rolled lat a facial recognition tool, it marketed it t enforcement. Recognize and track persons narrator police weve spoken to say its a valuable tool to identify suspects quickly. Appears to be a match, but im gonna make sure i look at narrator and whi amazon has offered guidelines for how it should be used, there are few laws governing the use of this technology. It returns anybody with warrants that look like her. Narrator Civil Liberties advocates have raised concerns,s as have computentists, who worry amazon has released the software before its ready, and that police are essenty fieldtesting it on the public on behalf ofhe company. The tools are not what i call battletested. And we still do not understand how well they work in the enronments in which theyll be plied. Thats where i see a danger. Ni narrator anandkumar was the principal scientist for Artificial Intelligence at amazon. In her first interview abo her concerns she told us she was forticularly alarmed by an m. I. T. Study thaund the sohware prone to mistakes w amazon has questioned the studys methodology. As a researcher in a. I. , i feel its my personal responsibility to educate the public of where a. I. Truly is today, right . Because they hear so much of a. I. Being hyped up, you kw, its supposed to be magical, its supposed to solve all the worlds problems i see the potential in doing need a reality check. Time we we need to ask, where is a. I. Today . What can it truly do well . And when it comes to facial recognition, you dontth k its ready for primetime. I dont think face recognition is ready forin primetimhallenging applications like Law Enforcement. Other scientists have asked amazon to stop selling rekognition to Law Enforcement because they say the systems i accuracystill in question, and there are no clear regulations about how its used. We asked andy jassy about it. I have a different view, and weve spent. Weve had the facial Recognition Technology out for use for over twoandahalf years now. And inhose twoandahalf years, weve never had any reported misuse of Law Enforcement using the facial know, i think a loocietald, you good is already being done with facial Recognition Technology. Already, youve seen huneds of missing kids reunited with their parents, and hundreds of human ndafficking victims saved, all kinds of security anden ty and education uses, so theres a lot of good thats anen done with it. But i also underthat it could be misused. Old i think at the end of the day with any tecy, whether youre talking about facial Recognition Technology or anything else, the people that use the technology have to be responsible for it, and if they use it irresponsibly, they have to be held accountle. Theres been all sorts of problems with policing in this country. So why allow police ments to experiment . We believe that governmentsti and the organis that are charged with keeping our access to the mostave to have sophisticated, modern technology that exists. We dont have a large number of poce departments that areg usr facial Recognition Technology, and as i said, weve never received any complaints of misuse. Lets see if somehow they abuse they havent done that, and to assume that theyre gonna do it and therefore you shouldn allow them to have access to the most Sophisticated Technology out there, doesnt feel like thm right balance its been difficult to even know how many Police Departments are usg the facial Recognition Technology, and theres no public auditing to know whether there are coints about abuse. How would the public ever know . You know, again, i dont think we know the total numberrt of police dents that are using facial Recognition Technology. I mean, there you can use any number we have 165 services in our technology infraure platform, and you can use them in whatever conjunction, anyat combn that you want. We know of some, and the vast majority of those that are using it are using it according to the guidance that weve prescribed. And when theyreot, we have conversations, and if we find that theyre using it in some irresponsible way, we wont allow them to use the service d the platform. Narrator andy jassy and jeff bezos have said they want governments to hur up and regulate how Law Enforcement can use facial recognition. But in the meantime, amazon has forged ahead, and has even discussed its services with migration and customs enforcement. At Amazon Web Services. Narrator and the u. Tary. Partner community tofo deliveour warfighters and defense leaders for when it matters most. Narrator bezos himself has madet clear that he sees amaz playing a Critical Role in national security, as well as in commerce. We are going to continue to support the d. O. D. , and i think we should. And if Big Tech Companies are gonna turn their back on theen u. Deparof defense, this country is gonna be in trouble. Narrator as amazon has revolutionized one industry after another, jeff bezoss reputation has grown to myth proportions. Youve called what jeff bezos has built a miracle. Absolute miracle. I wish i could give him a bloodt ter something so i could pick it out, but. You want to clone him . No, i want transfusion, actually. Amazon is now worth 1 trillion. Ar tor his every move moves the markets. Amazon advertising is just on fire. Narrator starting a Digital Advertising business to rivalgl facebook and ge. Some breaking news on whole foods. Holy cow. Jim, i heard you gasp just now. Holy cow, this is such a gamechaer. Narrator buying the grocery chain whole foods. In a recordbreaking deal, amazon is buying whole foods for cq3. 7 billion. The day the auisition was announced, the nations largest grery company lost billions of dollars because amazoncquired a company one12th the se. Everybody thinks bes is the smartest person in the world and hes gonna come and crush me. When amazon announced the acquisition of pill pack. News of the deal se shockwaves through an industry. Et the rail pharmacy sector shed billions of dollars. Look at this sty ree titans of industry. When amazon was mentioned in a presrelease with Berkshire Hathaway and jp morgan saying they were looking at healthcare costs no detail in what that meant. Healthcare companies are panicked about amazons fortoming entry into the healthcare market. On the opening bell the next morning, the healthcarege industrys l players shed billions of dollars. And insurance stocks are down after amazon announced Healthcare Partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and jp morgan chase. Bezos basically wants to own the whe economy, right . You think he will. I kind of think he will. I kinda think that in, like, ten years jeff bezos owns every single thing there is. H so amaz these darth vaderlike abilities to just look at a sector and begin o choking oxygen without even touching it. Amazon can begin beating competitors without competing. You actually think that amazon is havina negative effect on competition in the innovation economy right now . I think its a mixed bag, ith thin you could argue, and theres evidence that they have inspired innovation in certain sectors. T think theres a lot of Small Companies that arent being formed, because if you go in to try and raise money for ecommerce company, its, well, how are we going to compete against amazon . And i say, well, the answer can be summarized in one word impossible. All right, lets move some earth. Every single area that he enters into, he manages to succeed in a fairly major way. Weve had another great prime day. Weve never seen anything li a company that is so integrated into the fabr ofnc exis so, you know, at a certain point, it becomes unavoidable. Amazon just yesterday said. Bezos would even extend his reach into the heart of popular culture. Can you imagine macys starting a Media Company . But amazon does itpeople that. Take it seriously. explosionchoes people screaming narrator mazon is investing billions in new shows and movies. Oh. Hi. Hey. Rv narrator and on beefing up its streaming seice, which streams around four times as many movies as netflix, major narrator and on beefing up its streaming service, which streams four times as many movs as netflix, major league baseball, and pbs shows ke this one. audience applauding and the golden globe goes to. Transparent. Amazon instant video. I want to thank amazon, jeff bezos. To amazon, my new best. Friend. audience laughing bezos likes to joke about how, every time he wins a golden globe. H. Ps us sell more shoes. And it does that in a very direct way, because when peop. If you look at prime members, they, they buy more on amazon than nonpre members, and one of the reasons they do that is, once theyve paid their annual feetheyre looking around to see, how can i get more value out of the program . S theyre trying to use T Entertainment to get people into the pipeline. Alexa, play jack ryan on fire tv. To keep them sitting wiin this structure that is amazon, where it becomes ts unthinking habit thats starting to pattern all these parts of our existence. So youre doing the media stuff to encourage people to use more of prime. Ct cor amazon is represented at the academy awards. On ams the First Streaming Service nominated for best hes like one of the old studio bosses right now. He really enjoys havinispl e in the industry and really seems to relish bng at the center of attention there. I also want you to know, jeff, if you win tonight, you can expect your oscar to arrive in two to five business days. audience laughing what you see now is seone who is so supremely self confident. A guy who has become a titan. Amazon is about to get bigger. Its looking for anoth home in north america. Narrator bezos and amazons soaring stature uld be on full display in september 2017, whenn the companunced a contest to find a location for a second headquarters. Called hq2. Narrator they omised 5 billion in capital investments. 5 billion. In local investment. Narrator and 50,000 jobs. 50,000. 50,000 people. 50,000 highpaying jobs. E cities salivating over the opportunity. It was unprecedented because de number of jobs was heaand shoulders more than haever been offered in a deal before. This was a superhighprofile auction by the most Popular Consumer company in the, in the country. Narrator he company invited cities across nortamerica to pitch themselves. How about, i dont know, here . Narrator 238 took them up on it. I chose, miami you should, too. Cant wait to see you, amazon i, ebenezer scrooge. Narrator some with elaborately produced veos. I live in atlanta. Amazon is demonstrating that it has the power to get thousands of elected officia to remake their workday and bow down before amazon im mark bound, mayor of the city of danbury. And offer it huge tax breaks. Georgia offered 2 billion. Maryland offered 5 billion. 7 billion from new jersey. Huge infrastructure promises, huge prime parcels of land. Philadelphia is offering the most land 28 million square feet. They know that these places all dont have a prayer. O to those who saw it as a kind of grotesque display of corporate power, to ngle 50,000 jobs and potential billions of dollars of revenue over metropolitan cities around the country, you say what . L k, i, i think, i used to work for t United States government, like, we want businesses to invest in the United States. States want businesses to invest in states, cits, city officials want businesses to invest in cities. The proposals we got, the cities made the proposals, they wanteds o come, and they presented to uwhy they were an tractive option. Narrator in november 2018, amazon announced there were two winners arlington, vi, and new york city. This is by far the biggestw bs deal in the history of new york city, the history of new york state. Narrator new york city and state had campaigned hard for it, offering up nearly 3 billion in subsidies and tax breaks. Ill change my name tocu aman o if thats what it takes. Narrator in return, amazon promised 25,00jobs, billions of dollars in capital investments, and a small number of projects earmarked for local community members. I thought it could be a great thinfor new york. We are more and more of a tech center, we wanted to consolidate that reality. Having amazon here would havehe ed immensely. Amazon has got to go narrator but not everyone was enthused about giving billions in tax breaks to a trilliondollar corporation. Get out e handout alexandria ocasiocortez says the tax break isnt worth it. gavel pounding welcome to todays oversightn hearinhe deal. Narrator though the deal had already been finalized, the new york cy council insisted on a public hearing. It quily turned contentious. Mr. Husman, you mentioned that there are 5,000 employees that are currently working here in new york city for amazon, is that correct . Yes. Narrar Council Members grilled amazon executives on their position on unions, and ether the company would pledge to remain neutral if workers in new york state tried to unionize. How many of those employees are unionized . None, s none. Would you be okay with agreeing to neutrality so that rkers can unionize . No, sir, we respect. You wouldnt agree to that. Correct, sir, we would t. To go to a city council hearing, as amazon did, and antagonize the city council if they wanted to start a fight, they did a great job. If they wanted to actually show that they wereilling to work with this community and ourid values, they horrible job. You are in union city. And one of t first answers to your question today, is would you be neutral . You said no. That is not a way to come to our city. Narrator it was not the reaction the Company Expected wh it launched the contest. Two weeks later, amazon pulled out. Amazon is pulng the plug on its new york plans. We decid we didnt have to be there in that political dynamic. The fact of the matter is, when it turned out the govern and the mayor supporting something turned out not to be enough to persuade other crics that it was the right kind of investment for new york to make, we decided, thats fine, we can go he said to us t turned out that the governor and the mayor supporting something wasnt enough to persuade other critics that it was the right kind of investmentor new york to make. So we decided. We decided its fine, well go elsewhere. Thats an idiotic statement on its face. That is pure idiocy from a guy who should know a hell of a lot better. The dealas done, amazon knew it was done. There was noise, there was posturing by people in theli cal world, but the deal was done, so all were talking about here is the background noise. In what world are there no critic well, yeah, in an autocratic totalitarian world, maybe theyre not allo thats the world that jeff bezos somewhere in his mind thinks he is entitled to. Narrator at the time, bezos was involved in some personal turmoil. Amazon c. E. O. Jeff bezos and his wife of 25 years announcing they are splitting. The announcement coming amid tabloiports that bezos is now in a relationship with former news anchor lauren sanchez. Narrator the National Enquirer had been pursuing him the tabloid claims it tracked him across five states and over 40,000 miles. Narrator bezos saw the enquirers report as politically motivated. Wh so at would be the motive here of getting that embarrassing material about bezos and his alleged affair to who would want to get the dirt in the press . Narrator the magazines owner, david pecker, was linkedp to terful men who disliked how they were covered by bezoss washington st. The first was President Trump. Its put there for the benefit of the Washington Post, of amazon. Narrator the second Saudi Crown Prince mohammad binsa an, who the c. I. A. Had tied to the murder of one of the lposts journalists, ja khashoggi. Former c. I. A. Director john brennan said, i have no doubt that saudi arabia would want to embarrs jeff bezos and hurt him financially. Narrator david pec demanded that bezos publicly declare thenquirersot coverage wasolitically motivated or hed publish intimate photos of him. Breaking news tonht, a unner from the richest man in the world. Narrator rather than give in, bezos fought back. Jeff bezos calling out the publisher of the National Enquirer, david pecker. Bezos published a personal account accusing the nationalck enquirer of bil, of extortion. He turned the situation ound and handled it so brilliantly he was very transparent, he was very courageous, admitted se very embarrassing things about himself, didnt try to deny it and positioned the other individual as the bully, and and somehow turnedinto anuts, net positive. I mean, this really was the pr ages. Egy and execution of the i never seen anything like this. Narrator publicly, bezos has pushed ahead undaunted a worldfamous celebrity. And even after a 38 billionle divorce sent, still the richest person on the planet. An cheerapplause but the calls to rein his mpany are growing loud. Amazon reported 10 billion in profits and paid zero in taxes. I will single out Companies Like halliburton or amazon that pay nothing in taxes in our t nechange that. Heres bezos achieving this American Dream and succe. And, and hes now the target of, of all of this criticism. An basically, it becomes a symbol of all of his problems. Amazon is closing 30 of americas stores a malls and paying. E yousically a pinata dangling in front of any politician with a populist message. Anyone who wants to talk about wealth inequality, theyrein pointing theirr at you. This is why three people own more wealth than the bottom half. If they want to talk about problems with capitalism in general, theyre pointing their finger at you. We need to enforce our antitrust laws, break up these giant companies. Narrator and its coming from all sides. President trump just sent a chill down the spine of jeff bezos. The president again teed off against amazon on twitter. Sh narrator President Trump has madeezoss own of the Washington Post aegular target. Washington post, bezos uses that as his lobbyist, okay . He kind of assumed that the Washington Post was operated in the sort of way that he would operate a newsper. And so he thought that bezos was dictating coverage to the post, which we should be careful to say is not the case. Narrator trump has also criticized amazon, and accused the company of evading taxes. Last year, the company was competing for a 10 billion Cloud Computing contract with the department of defense. This contract would have solidified bezoss dominance in Cloud Computing. This is a hugely important thing. Narrator but t Company Claims President Trump intervened to scuttle the deal. And were looking at it veryi sly. Its a very big contract. One of the biggest ever given. A big win for microsoft, being out amazon. Amazon can protest the outcome, especially given the unusual, unprecedented cments by President Trump. Its an extraordinary times we live in that one of the worlds biggest corporations, president of the United States has corrupted our ability to win this contract. Is there any evidence of that . The evidence is what the president has publicly said. Narrator and a problems have continued to multiply. The federal trade commission is now reconsidering its stance on antitrust enforcement and is looking at amazon as are regulators in the e. U. Owhis gatekeeper power and the platforms are exercising it narrator in washington, democratic congressman David Cicilline has launched an antitrust investigation into allegations of abusive conduct bymazon and the other tech giants. Given your experience, do yoa agree wizons statements suggesting that it seeks to act in the best interest ofll independent s . I disagree with that. We get, i dont know, what i might call bullying with a smile. We were able to get several public to come to hearing. That required tremendous courage because therea real potential for economic retaliation for their sharing th. We dont have the resources to fight amazon. We couldse some help. In the course of your investigation thus far, and youve had several publi hearings, have you seen any evidence of anticompetitive behavior by amazon . Anticompetitive behavior by all of the large platforms as a result otheir market dominance. But it sort of doesnt fall on the companies to fix this problem. It falls on us without objection, the hearing is adjourned. Narrator cicillines committee is considering everything from imposing limits on what businesses a company like amazon can engage in, to restricting the collection and use of data. The man who helped jeff bezos build amazon 25 years ago says may be necessary to go even further. D on the one hand, im pr what it became, but it also scares me. M, and, just feel like its important for someone in my lsituation to, you know, st t say why think about whats going on. This is sort of in some ways a baby that you gave birth to, righ and so, i mean, you helped birth azon. Um, yea very much so. In fact, i used to, um, youer know, get up s times during the night to, just to see if it was working and. And, you know, take care of it if it wasnt, so. And when you look at what amazon has grown into today,ou see what . chuckles well, um. You know, you dont want to see your offspring, um, become, um, antisocial adults, right . I think not all of the effects of the company on the ,world are for the best a um. An you know, i, i wish it werent so, and i. You know, ngand i. But i had someto do with bringing it into existence, so, its partly on me. And, i meanisnt. Isnt this just pitalism . Isnt this just a company doing what a company does . Y yes, it is, um, and i think theyre doing what the busines schools teach people to do, and theyre doing it aggressively and skillfully and with greatin lligence. And they will continue to do that unless theyre constrained by other forces in society. There are proposals out there to break up amazon. Is that something youd promote, the idea of breaking them up . I uhink that theyre now at the scale where that could potentially make sense. How do you and jeff and others at the Senior Leadership level think about the call to break you guys up . We dont think about it very, very deeply. You know, ive been at amazon now for 22andahalf years, d i always remember one of the first things i heard jeff bezos say back when we could fit e whole company in just one Conference Room for an allhands meeting. He said, i would not go to bedi at night f your competitors or fearing any external issues. Would go to bed at night fearing whether youre doing right by your customers. We live here and its what weat spend most of our time thinking about. Wel i, i understand that were big, and that, that we deserve scrutiny, and i think evything thats. Thats large in the economy and in society should deserve scrutiny. The problem is, when you think about us, were in a lot of verticals, yes. Theres. Theres video, and theres commerce, and theres, you know, theres web rvices. Here are all these thin but in every one of them, we have inten competition, and i do understand why, when youre in a lot of them, can seem like wereverywhere, but the global. If we were everywhere, that means were talking about the global economy, not just Global Retail its so vast, were just, you know, were a speck. To the public, it may sound strange coming from amazon, which is a company with basically a trilliondollar market cap, your c. E. O. Is the richest man inhe world, but jeff wilke said to me that youre kind of just a speck in the scheme of things. Do you see how that coem strange or incongruous . You know, amazon as a whole has become, you know, has been successful, but simply because the companys been successful i a few differsiness segments doesnt mean its mehow too big. Narrator as jeff bezoss ercompany is coming under greater scrutiny for everything from how it wields power to even its impact on the environment s continuing to look beyond it all. W get to preserve this unique gem of a planet which is comptely irreplaceable. There is no plan b. E we h save this planet, and we shouldnt give up auture for our grandchildrens grandchildren of dynamism and growth. We can have both. Who is gonna do this work . Oc ket rumbling narrator hes spending a billion dollars a ye of his personal fortune on a Space Exploration company he created. And its this generations job to build that road to space, so that the future generations can unleash their creativity. Narrator for bezos, its always been about one thing his i want you to think about this. This vision sounds very big, an. It none of this is easy, all of it is hard,ut i want to inspire you, and so think about this. Big things start small audience applauding thank you. audience cheers and applauds go to pbs. Org frontline for extended excerpts of our interviews with top amazon a executiv insiders, including employee number one. m on one handroud of what it became, but it also scares me. And more on amazons use of facial recognition software. I think a lot of societal good is already being done with facial recognitionechnology. Connect to the Frontline Community on facebook and twitter, and watch atime on the pbs video app, or pbs. Org frontline. Contributions to yse possible by station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Ca hur foundation, committed to building a more just, vernt and peeful world. Anby the Ford Foundation working with visionaries on the frontlines of cial change worldwide. Additional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in n,urnalism. The park foundat dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The john and Helen Glessner familyrust. Supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. The heisingsimons foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities. And by the frontline journalism fund, withajor support from jon an jo ann hagler. And Additional Support from Laura Debonis and scott than. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org for more on this and other frontline programs, visit our website at pbs. Org frontne. To order frontlines, amazon empire the rise and reign of jeff bezos, on dvd visit shop pbsr call 1800playpbs. Is program is also available on amazon prime video. Youre watching pbs. Robert mueller has submitted his report. The truth is rarely black anh e. Intelligence officials are expected to be face to face. All we hear about. But if we ask the hard questions. Russia witch hunt. Check the facts. Important issues ar of privacy. Dig a little deeper. Boom and take a breath. Thtruth is closer than you think. 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