economy, the work gap. bezos has become the second richest person in the world and he added a unfathomable $24 billion to his fortune during the pandemic alone. democrats often cite this kind of windfall should make reforms that would raise taxes on individually wealthy people like bezos, and all this as many worry about rent and food as bezos sends himself to space. bloomberg reporter, brad stone, is the author of amazon unbound. the book goes right inside some of the most secretive meetings that bezos has, which makes us very interested in your sources. thank you for being here. thank you, ari. you have been on this beat.
July 22, 2021
Marc Levinson
THE WASHINGTON POST – In the autumn of 2014, talk show host Charlie Rose interviewed Steve Ballmer, former head of the Seattle-based software giant Microsoft. When Rose asked his view of another prominent Seattle company, Ballmer minced no words. “In my world,” he said, “you’re not a real business until you make some money.”
The target of Ballmer’s jibe, Amazon.com, was indeed an enigma. Although it had long since become a household name, Amazon was notorious for its chronic inability to turn revenue into profit. As Ballmer spoke, it was in the midst of a money-losing year and its stock price was sagging. But over the next six years, the company’s stock market value would mushroom from USD141 billion to USD1.6 trillion, turning Amazon into the fourth-largest corporation on the planet.
of your screen and now that jeff bezos is back from the final frontier, we re looking at the business of space, what this means from a corporate perspective on space travel. we ve been talking about this billionaire space race between him, between virgin galactic s richard branson, elon musk s spacex and today bezos playing catchup. elon are flying astronauts into orbit, not suborbitally. you have branson who got into space first before jeff bezos earlier this month. now that bezos is taking this step, is this bet on space tourism going to pay off? i want to bring in scott galloway, marketing professor of business and co-host of the pivot podcast and brad stone author of amazon unbound: jeff bezos and the invention of a global empire. scott, morgan stanley predicts the space market could be worth
because what we do with space, technology, with capabilities, depends on people who are involved with it. depending on people who have the perspective and could apply it to things like agriculture here on earth, could apply it to helping developing countries map roads and chart even disease outbreaks. so it is a very exciting time. yeah, of course. in this case you have a for-profit and space tourism, right, poppy, the opportunity for individuals and private citizens to buy a ticket to space and i wonder if you could say today, poppy, we saw the first commercial space liner, right. maybe. maybe. we know you want to go. jim sciutto, you re young and they think that in the next few decades, maybe it is more affordable. we ll see. dr. jameson, stand by. don t go anywhere. let me bring in brad stone and author of the newest book
amazon unbound, jeff bezos and i remember interviewed you a few years ago for the amazon documentary we did, do you remember that and we talked about this and we talked about space. and i asked you what does bezos want to do. what is the goal here. you have interviewed him and know and studied him so closely, what does he want to do from here with this? right, poppy. and the vision has been to consistent since he was a kid. he gave his high school valedictorian speech on his vision for space. and it was not about going to suborbital space on a trip, it was about opening up the space frontier so millions of humans could live and work in space. and this is orbiting space stations powered by sun and built with materials from the moon and this is a multi-generational effort. but today was a starting point and foye blue origin that had a lot to prove. because it is 20 years old.